"Mr. Kershaw was pretending to help him, poking at him up and down his back.
"'Oh, I thought I had them then!—there, under your arm,—no, down your leg. Dear me! how very active they are. What remarkably fine specimens! They seem to be quite tame; how much you must know about them to live with them like this, quite in the style of a happy family. They really seem to love you. I should not like to keep them about myself though, in this manner. Do you always have them upon your own person, my friend?'
"At last the cook twigged the joke, for we were all laughing so, but he was quite cross about it, and flung away muttering something about fools, and wishing to knock Mr. Kershaw's head off for him."
Ralph could not help laughing again at the remembrance of the scene, and Mr. Gilchrist joined in his merriment.
But soon there was no more time for jokes or laughter, stern reality claimed all their attention.
Mr. Gilchrist was sitting one day upon a lounging-chair, beneath the shade of an awning, when the captain approached him with anxiety plainly imprinted on his face.
"How now, Rogers?" said he; "your face is as long as from here to there!"
"And with good reason too," replied the captain; "I fear that a terrible calamity has come upon us."
"Why, my good fellow, what can be going to happen now?" cried Gilchrist, alarmed in his turn.
"Fire," said Rogers laconically, but with grave emphasis.