The sailor obeyed; and as Mark took it he held it down before the dog, and then returned it to its owner.
Bruff did not say “All right!” but he gave three pats on the oil-cloth with his long bushy tail, a sign that he accepted the position, and then he was allowed to get up.
“Who’s afeard!” cried Billy Widgeon, looking from one to the other. “I say, I was too many for him, sir.”
“Yes,” said the captain; “and what about my Indian jar?”
“Ah! that was the dog’s fault, cap’n,” said the man earnestly.
“Dog’s fault!” said Captain Strong. “You knocked it down and broke it, and I shall stop the cost out of your pay.”
Billy Widgeon stood for a moment looking solemn. Then, as if he had suddenly been engaged as a dentist’s specimen, he bared all his fine white teeth in the broadest of broad grins.
“Nay, skipper,” he said, “you wouldn’t do that. Me and my shipmets wouldn’t want to make another v’yge with you if you was that sort o’ capt’n. I’ll buy you another one when we gets to Chany. Here’s off!”
He nodded to all in turn, went out of the door, rattled his umbrella on the iron railings in front, making Bruff utter a low discontented growl, and then, as the door was closed, the growl became a deeply-drawn breath like a sigh, while putting his nose to the crack at the bottom, he stood with his ears twitching, giving forth a faint whine now and then, apparently not quite satisfied as to whether he had done his duty, and uneasy in his mind about that umbrella. “You will have to be careful with that dog, Mark,” said the captain. “He must be tamed down, or we shall have worse mischief than a broken jar.”
“He thought the man was stealing the umbrella,” pleaded Mark on behalf of his favourite.