“You said you’d rope’s-end me if I did,” grumbled the red-faced boy.
“And so I will, you young swab,” roared the gardener. “Why, you onnat’ral young galley-dabber, are you going to turn up your ugly pig’s nose at your father’s purfession?”
“Pan doesn’t like the sea any more than I do,” cried Sydney; “and I say it’s a shame to force boys to be what they don’t like.”
“Well, this beats all,” cried the gardener, helping himself to a fresh piece of tobacco. “What the world’s coming to next, I dunnow. Why, if the King, bless him! know’d o’ this, it would break his heart.”
“Syd! Ahoy there!” came from the dining-room window.
“Aho—”
Sydney was about to reply with a hearty sea-going Ahoy! but he altered his mind and cried—
“Yes, father; I’m coming.”
This was followed by a savage slap on the leg given by the ex-boatswain, who had settled down with his master the captain at The Heronry, Southbayton.
“Just like a loblolly boy,” he growled. “You, Pan, if you was to answer a hail like that I’d—Stop; come here.”