“Ye-es,” said Mr Rimmer, with a comically perplexed look in his bluff English countenance, “when we get her to the sea. You don’t think she’ll stick fast, do you, Mr Lane?”
“Well, I hope not,” said Oliver, “but when I get thinking about how big you are making her, I can’t help having doubts.”
“Doubts?” said the mate, sadly, as if he had plenty of his own.
“Yes—no,” cried Oliver, “I will not have any. We will get her down to the sea somehow. Englishmen have done bigger things than that.”
“And will again, eh, sir?” cried the mate. “Come, that’s encouraging. You’ve done me no end of good, sir, that you have. There, off with you, and get back to dinner in good time. Crowned pigeon for dinner, and fish.”
He attacked the side of the lugger with redoubled energy, his strokes following the party for far enough as they trudged on due south to an opening in the forest not yet visited by either Drew or Lane, and the latter, as he saw the abundance of tempting specimens, exclaimed,—
“I say, what have we been about not to visit this spot before?”
“Had too many other good spots to visit, I suppose,” said Drew; “but, my word! look at the orchids here.”
“Bah! That’s nothing to what you will see, eh, Smith?”
“Yes, sir, they’ll stare a bit when they gets farder on. Me and Billy’s been thinking as we should like to retire from business and build ourselves houses there to live in, speshly Billy.”