"'She'd git her little banjo an' she'd sing Kulla-lo-lo!'—but not in Bailey's Harbor,—hey, what? She wouldn't get her little banjo there, or you'd run her in, wouldn't you, Squire? You and the Constable!"
"Where did you get that poem?" asked Pete, who was furling the sail.
"I read it in a paper last week. Isn't it great? It's by a man with a funny name,—I wish I could remember it! 'An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!' That's the way the dawn does come up over there, isn't it? Ever been in China, Squire?"
"No, I haint," said Gregory. "Where be you fellers goin' to put me ashore? That's what I want to know."
"All in good time, Squire, all in good time. Watch this,—I bet you can't do it!"
And Sprague made a clean dive and scoot under the water, came up thirty feet away, and commenced to float, facing the boat, and waggling one big toe at Gregory the Gauger.
It did not take me two seconds to know what I wanted to do, nor two minutes to get overboard. The water was cold, but I swam around the yacht, before I climbed out again. One by one the others came up from below, and they all jumped over for a swim, except Gregory and the Chief. The latter went poking about, in his silent, methodical way, paying no attention to the orders which Sprague fired at him.
"Food! food!" called the banjo-player, climbing aboard; "my wasted frame cries aloud for food. Get out the frying-pan, Chief, and the coffee-pot! Move about more briskly,—remember that I have been many days on bread and water in a dungeon … Oh, hang it!"
He floundered about in his shirt, which he had put on wrong side foremost in his hurry.
"Fish out those eggs, and see if there are any rolls left,—I'll match you for yours, Squire. You won't be hungry, you haven't been in swimming."