“Good gracious!” cried Blunt, with mock solemnity. “The poor fellow is going wrong. Overstrain, I suppose, from the excitement of the fight. There! try and be calm. It’s a bad sign when a fellow begins to make feeble jokes. Don’t try again, Lynn. Keep on with some nice, light, playful idea or two, such as the flying kites and contriving busters for the Chinese junks. Those would be gentle, innocent pursuits. But seriously, though, the more I think of what you say the more I am taken by it. You see, it would be quite new and startling for the enemy. Those junks are as fragile as can be, and a very little would send them to the bottom. Here, I say, I think I have it. Isn’t there a chemical that we could squirt over them from an engine of some kind?”
“What for?”
“To burn them. I once saw a chemical experiment in which such stuff was thrown on to some light wood, and it burst into flame at once. That’s the stuff we want. If we can set one junk on fire, it will set more in the same condition. What do you say to that?”
“Splendid, if it could be done.”
“Could be done? It must be done, and we’re going to do it. Oh, there are more ways of killing a cat than hanging it. Let the pigtails come. They shall find that I’m not going to have any more of our chests and bales spoiled. I think—”
“So do I,” said Stan firmly—“that you’ve been talking twice as much as you ought to do; so now have a rest.”
“Well, I am a bit husky,” said Blunt, “but not like the same man to-day. Humph! Perhaps you are right.”