Pem bristled. “Dern yer hide!” he roared. “If he was I’ll be sunk if he wouldn’t grab ye fust, ye peg-legged Harp. I’d——”
Cap’n Pem’s sentence was interrupted by a shout and Jim Lathrop and Tom Chester, who had been with the old whalemen on the Hector in the Antarctic, came racing towards them.
“Hurrah!” cried Tom. “That tug’s coming in here with that old brig. Say, Cap’n Pem, what do you suppose they’re going to do with her?”
“Bless ye, that ain’t no brig,” responded the old man. “That’s a torpsa’l schooner—the ol’ Narwhal. Ain’t seed her afloat fer years. Reckon Dixon’s goin’ fer to fit her out fer a cruise.”
“Cruise!” cried Jim. “Gee, you don’t mean to say any one would be crazy enough to go to sea on her! Why, the old Hector was bad enough, but she was new compared to that tub, and was big enough to hoist this boat up to her davits.”
Mike chuckled. “Glory be!” he exclaimed. “Even the b’ys is afther knowin’ ’tis no cruise she’ll be takin’. Shure, me laddies, Oi wuz just afther tellin’ Pem ’twas a-junkin’ av her they’ll be. But b’gorra, he’ll be havin’ av it his own way an’, phwat’s more, the ol’ idjit’s a-sayin’ as he’ll be afther a-tryin’ to ship along av her.”
The boys laughed. “I thought you were never going to sea again, Cap’n Pem,” cried Tom. “You said you were going to settle down ashore and buy a farm with your share of the Hector’s catch.”
“And you said only an old fool like Mr. Nye would ship a wooden-legged mate,” put in Jim. “Isn’t Mike going too to keep you company?”