“No,” I said.
“Because I shall if you talk to me like that. Old Big didn’t make me. I was cold and—”
“Frightened,” I said.
“No, I wasn’t frightened, sneak.”
“Well, I was, horribly,” I said. “I thought we should never get to shore again. Weren’t you frightened, Big?”
“Never felt so frightened before since I got wedged in the rocks,” said Bigley coolly.
“Then you are a pair of cowards,” cried Bob sharply. “I was so cold and wet and stiff I could hardly move, but I never felt frightened in the least.”
I looked at Bigley, and found that he was looking at me; and then he laid his head against the bulkhead, and shut his eyes and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and I laughed too, as the picture of ourselves in the open boat came before me again, with Bigley ordering Bob to get up and row, and him shivering and sobbing and protesting like a child.
“What are you laughing at?” he cried. “You’ve got out of your trouble now and you want to quarrel, I suppose. But I sha’n’t; I don’t want to fight. Only wait till we get across, you won’t laugh when old Jony Uggleston comes down on you both for taking the boat. I shall say I didn’t want you to, but you would. And then you’ve got my father and your father to talk to you after that.”
But in spite of these unpleasant visions of trouble, which he conjured up, Bigley and I still laughed, for, boy-like, the danger passed, its memory did not trouble us much. We had escaped: we were safe; Bob was making himself ridiculously comic by his hectoring brag, and all we wanted to do was to laugh.