“And so you really believe you could wash these Malay chaps white?”
“I do, sir. I’d holystone ’em till they was.”
“It would be a long job, Dick,” said Bob laughing. “But I say, don’t you wish you had gone with the hunting-party?”
“Yah!” said Dick, assuming a look of great disgust and contempt, although he had been growling and acting, as his mates said, like a bear with a sore head, because he could not go. “Not I, sir, not I. Why, what have they gone to do? Shoot a big cat all brown stripes. I don’t want to spend my time ketching cats. What’s the good on ’em when they’ve got ’em? Only to take their skins. Now there is some sense in a bit of fishing.”
“Especially when your crew in the boat goes to sleep, and let’s you be surprised by the Malays.”
“Ah, but don’t you see, sir,” said Dick, with his eyes twinkling, “that’s a kind o’ moral lesson for a young officer? Here was the case you see: the skipper goes to sleep, and don’t look after his crew, who, nat’rally enough, thinks what the skipper does must be right, and they does the same.”
“Oh! all right, master Dick,” said the middy. “I’ll take the lesson to heart. Don’t you ever let me catch you asleep, that’s all.”
“No, sir,” said the old sailor, grinning, “I won’t. I’ve got too much of the weasel in me. But as I was saying, sir, there’s some sense in a bit o’ fishing, and I thought if so be you liked I’d get the lines ready.”
“No, Dick, no,” said Bob, firmly, as he recalled Lieutenant Johnson’s words over the breakfast-table. “I’ve no time for fishing to-day. And besides, I’m in charge of the ship.”
“Oh! indeed, sir,” said Dick. “I beg pardon, sir.”