At a little after half-past eleven, Young happened to look at his watch, and it struck him that he had not heard the ship’s bell sound seven bells as it should have done a few minutes before. Looking over toward the day bunk, he noticed Dick, the messenger, fooling with some of the boys who were off duty, and quietly walked up to him.
“Say, Dick,” said he, “didn’t you forget to strike seven bells?”
“No, it isn’t time yet,” retorted Dick somewhat crossly.
“You’d better look at the cabin clock and see,” answered Young. “Say, Dick,” continued the master-at-arms, “you have no business to be here on the day bunk when you’re one of the watch on duty.”
Dick flung off in a huff to look at the clock and found that he was six minutes late. Then he started forward to ring the bell and bumped up against Chippie Smith.
“Get out of the way there, Chip; don’t you see I’ve got to strike the bell? I’m six minutes late now, but I don’t care whether it’s six or sixteen! I’m tired to death of all this doing things on time and splitting the day up into seconds! It’s all bosh, I say.”
“You go and strike the bell,” retorted Chippie, “and do your talking afterwards!” And then he thought to himself:
“I guess it’s about time to have another meeting of the club. I’ll go and find Tom.”
CHAPTER VI
Sports by Land and Water
The evening before, Mr. Miller had engaged the Hull baseball field for this afternoon; and, as all the boys were to be allowed liberty, some of them went down to the cabin at half-past two to ask for a little of their money which was kept in the ship’s safe. At a quarter to three the bugle sounded for liberty inspection, and a few of the greener boys were found to have tied their black kerchiefs with wrong knots, causing a laugh among the older ones.