"Or else he must have seen a ghost," replied Smallbones.
"I've heard of ghosts ashore, and sometimes on board of a ship, but I never heard of a ghost in a jolly-boat," said Coble, spitting under the gun.
"'Specially when there were hardly room for the corporal," added Spurey.
"Yes," observed Short.
"Well, we shall know something about it to-night, for the corporal and I am to have a palaver."
"Mind he don't circumwent you, Jimmy," said Spurey.
"It's my opinion," said Smallbones, "that he must be in real arnest, otherwise he would not ha' come for to go for to give me a glass of grog--there's no gammon in that;--and such a real stiff 'un too," continued Smallbones, who licked his lips at the bare remembrance of the unusual luxury.
"True," said Short.
"It beats my comprehension altogether out of nothing," observed Spurey. "There's something very queer in the wind. I wonder where the corporal has been all this while."
"Wait till this evening," observed Jemmy Ducks; and, as this was very excellent advice, it was taken, and the parties separated.