“Oh, you had better do it, father. I should be too extravagant.”
“No,” said the skipper quietly. “The owners of the Teal and I don’t wish to be stingy. The lads have done their work well, and I should like them to have a bit of a feast and a holiday now. Here, boatswain, pass the word for the cook and get half-a-dozen men to help. We must store up all that will keep. Here, Burgess, we may as well fill a chicken-coop or two.”
“Humph!” grunted the mate surlily. “Want to turn my deck into a shop?”
“No,” said the skipper good-humouredly, “but I want to have the cabin-table with something better on it to eat than we have had lately. I am afraid we shall be having Mr Burnett here so disgusted with the prog that he will be wanting to go ashore, and won’t come back.”
“All right,” growled the mate, and he walked away with the skipper, to follow out the orders he had received.
“I say,” said Fitz, “I wonder your father puts up with so much of the mate’s insolence. Any one would think that Burgess was the skipper; he puts on such airs.”
“Oh, the dad knows him by heart. It is only his way. He always seems surly like that, but he’d do anything for father; and see what a seaman he is. Here, I say, let’s have some of those bananas. They do look prime.”
“Yes,” said Fitz; “I like bananas. I should like that big golden bunch.”
“Why, there must be a quarter of a hundredweight,” said Poole.
“Do you think they’ll take my English money?”