“It doesn’t seem a bit like being shipwrecked,” said Carey one day, as he lay back in a cane chair. “One has so many things about one. Shipwrecked folk don’t generally have plenty of tools and things. I say, doctor, shall I be fit to go with you the first time you go ashore?”
“Would you like to?”
“Like to! Oh, I say,” cried the boy; “fancy being left here alone in the ship when you two go. I say, don’t leave me; it would make me worse.”
“Wait a bit, and we’ll see. The raft is not ready yet. Bostock has not fitted the mast and sail.”
“No,” said Carey, thoughtfully. “I say, isn’t he dreadfully slow?”
The doctor laughed.
“Well, I was thinking something of the kind, certainly, my boy.”
Carey was silent and thoughtful for a few minutes, and then he began again.
“It’s very beautiful lying back here,” he said at last, “and sometimes I feel as if I should like to do nothing else for a month to come. Then I get hot and fidgety and tired of it all. Yes, he is horribly slow. I’ve watched him, and instead of knocking a nail right in at once he gets boring holes and measuring and trying first one and then another till he gets one to suit him. It makes me feel sometimes as if I should like to throw books at him. I’ll tell him to make haste and finish.”
“Better not, perhaps,” said the doctor, quietly, as he busied himself trying to catch some of the floating jelly-fish over the side with a rope and bucket. “You may hurt his feelings.”