"Now you are flattering me, Mr. Harkaway," said the captain.
"Captain Willis," said impetuous Jack, "if you call me Mr. Harkaway, I shall think that you are stiff-backed and bear malice."
"What a wild fellow you are," said the captain. "Why, what on earth shall I call you?"
"Jack, sir," returned our hero. "John on Sunday and holidays, if you prefer it, just as a proof that you don't bear any ill feeling to a madman, who has the good luck to have a lucid interval, and to apologise heartily as I do now."
The captain held out his hand.
Jack dropped his into it with a spank, and grasped it warmly.
"Don't say any more on this subject, Mr.—I mean, Jack," said the captain, smiling, "or you will make me quite uncomfortable."
And so the matter ended.
Jack could not be dull for long together.
He plucked up his old vivacity, and went off to Mr. Figgins' cabin.