“Hearing the fellows puffing and blowing you up. You’ll go pop like a soap bubble one of these days.”
Mark laughed good-humouredly.
“Anyone would think you had done wonders, and were going to be promoted to admiral instead of being only a middy who has to pass his examination years hence, and then going to be plucked for a muff, for I know more navigation than you do. Look here, Guy Fawkes: when the sun is in right declination forty-four degrees south, how would you find the square root of the nadir?”
“Put your head a little nearer, Bob; I can’t hit out quite so far.”
“Hit—hit me? Why, you bald-headed, smooth-faced— No, I won’t jump on you now you’re down. I’ll be bagdadibous, as the chap with a cold in his head said through his nose. Favourite of fortune, I forgive you.”
“Thankye.”
“Because I shall get my whack of the prize-money same as you, old chap.”
“Ah, how are all the slaves?”
“Nice and clean. They’ve all been white-washed.”
“Get out.”