“Let me clean it, sir,” cried Dan. “I’ll wash out the barrels and give it a good ’iling.”
“Yes, do,” said Mark, who began to suck his finger.
“Why, I say, Mark,” cried Dean, “I never thought of it before: that’s the finger you asked me to get the thorn out of that day after we got back from my slip into that hole.”
“Eh?” exclaimed Mark, looking at him doubtfully.
“Why, of course! Don’t you remember?”
“No,” said Mark. “I feel quite stupid this morning, after this.”
“Try to think, my boy,” cried Sir James impatiently. “It would set all our minds at rest.”
“Why, to be sure, Mark,” cried his cousin. “Don’t you remember? You said you could not do it yourself because it was in your right finger and it was such a bungle to handle a pin with your left hand.”
Mark stared at his cousin for a few moments, and gazed round at those who were waiting to hear him speak; and then a gleam of light seemed to dart from his eyes as he cried excitedly, “Why, of course! I remember now; and you couldn’t get it out with the pin, and you said it was a good job too, for a brass pin was a bad thing to use, and that we would leave it till we could get a big needle from Dan, such as he used for mending his stockings.”
“Hear, hear!” cried the little sailor, by way of corroboration as to his handling of a needle.