After the noonday mess the boys were resting on the forward deck when Sam called the attention of his companion to a group of sailors on the port side, leaning against the rail engaged in earnest conversation. The spokesman was no other than Bill Kester. Bill was gesticulating. A sailor appeared to be opposing him in something.
“I wonder what’s up?” mused Dan.
“Quarreling again, I guess,” decided Sam, rising and strolling forward where he leaned over the bow of the ship, gazing thoughtfully down into the turbulent sea. Now and then a thin shower of spray would mount high in the air and dash over him, the anchored ship having swung about until its bow was headed into the half-gale that was blowing up the coast.
After a time two jackies strolled over to where Dan was sitting, and leaned indolently against the forward twelve-inch turret.
“How’s the shipmate to-day?” inquired one.
“Very well, thank you.”
“Feeling fit as a fiddle, eh?”
“Never better, though I do feel as if I had been eating paint all my life. I’m all red on the outside and white on the inside. My walls do not need any more dressing,” laughed Dan.
“Then we’ve got a proposition to make to you.”
“A what?”