Syd stared.
“Was that all, sir?”
“Yes, my lad. I think he said something about you’d grow more clever by and by. But go and get on some dry things.”
Syd felt crestfallen and hurt, that after such a terrific adventure his father should be so cool.
But down below the news had already spread, and as he went to the berth to change his things, a knot of his messmates were ready and eager to question him for the endorsement of what they had heard from the boatswain and the men.
He told what he had to tell rather unwillingly, and when he had done regretted that he had said a word, for the careless young dogs only laughed.
“That wasn’t half an adventure,” cried Bolton. “You should have drawn your dirk, dived under him, and slit him up. That’s what the niggers do.”
“Yes,” said Jenkins, “or else have had hold of his tail, and made him tow you. I would.”
“Why, Jenky,” cried Roylance, “he’d have taken you like a pill.”
“I believe,” cried Syd, angrily, “that you’d all have liked it better if I’d come back with one leg snapped off.”