“Hanimals!” cried the coxswain, with an incredulous smile; “well, sir, I always took ’em to be weggitables. We live and larn, sure enough. Are cabbage and hingions hanimals too?”
“No,” replied the surgeon, much amused, “they are not, Marshall; but these are. Now take them to the boat, and put them in a safe place; and then come back.”
“I say, Bill, look ye here,” said the coxswain to one of the sailors, who was lying down on the thwarts of the boat, holding up the coral to him in a contemptuous manner—“what the hell d’ye think this is? Why, it’s a hanimal!”
“A what?”
“I’ll be blow’d if the doctor don’t say it’s a hanimal!”
“No more a hanimal than I am,” replied the sailor, laying his head down again on the thwarts, and shutting his eyes.
In a few minutes Marshall returned to the surgeon, who, tired with clambering over the rocks, was sitting down to rest himself a little. “Well, Marshall, I hope you have not hurt what I gave into your charge.”
“Hurt ’em!—why, sir, a’ter what you told me, I’d as soon have hurt a cat.”
“What, you are superstitious on that point, as seamen generally are.”
“Super-what, Mr Macallan? I only knows, that they who ill-treats a cat, comes worst off. I’ve proof positive of that since I have been in the service. I could spin you a yarn.”