"I am Botts."
"Botts!" said Toney.
"Botts!" exclaimed Seddon.
"Botts!" shouted Bragg.
"Yes, gentlemen, I am Botts."
CHAPTER X.
It would require the perfection of language to describe the amazement of Captain Bragg when he beheld a slimy figure, looking like one of the powers by whom he continually swore, and heard a voice issuing from its ugly lips, and saying "I am Botts." The placards, in which he was about to doom his absconding adversary to eternal infamy, dropped from his hand, and were picked up by a boy, and converted into the tail for a kite. Toney and Tom were also astonished at the sudden and strange appearance of the missing man. After a moment of silence, Belton said,—
"Where did you come from?"