“Eh! eh! what’s that?” cried Captain Belton. “You thrashed him, Sydney; what for?”
“Well, father, we did have a little misunderstanding,” said Sydney, composedly.
“It was ’cause I wouldn’t come back, sir; that’s it, sir,” whimpered Pan. “I knowd father had made the rope’s-end ready for me, and he had.”
“What’s that?” said the captain. “I said you were not to be flogged until you had been tried.”
“Well, your honour, orders it was, and I didn’t lay it on him,” growled Barney.
“No; but you laid it across me in bed, and you kep’ on showing of it to me, and you said that was my supper, and my breakfass, and—and—I wish I hadn’t come back, I do.”
“Is this true, Strake?”
“Well, your honour, I s’pose it’s about it,” said the boatswain. “I ’member showing of it to him once or twyste.”
“He’s got it in his pocket now, sir,” cried Pan.
“Ay, ay. That’s a true word, lad.”