“Yes, Nie, civilisation is a wonderful thing when it can extend even to the lower animals. You were once a savage yourself too, Nie. Think of that.”
“I shan’t think about it,” I replied. “None of your sauce, my worthy friend. What were you doing at Seychelles, and what were you doing with a wild cat on board?”
“We had queerer things than wild cats on board, Nie; the fact is, we were what they call cruising on special service. We had a fine time of it, I can tell you. We seemed to go everywhere, and do nothing in particular. At the time we had that wild cat on board, Nie, we had already been three years in commission, and had sailed about and over almost every ocean and sea in the world.”
“What a lot of fun and adventure you must have had, Ben! Wish I had been with you.”
“You were in the Rocky Mountains then, I believe?”
“Yes, and in Australia, and the Cape. You see, I had a turn after gold and diamonds wherever I thought I could find them. But help yourself and me to some more of those glorious trout, and spin your yarn.”
“Let us get away out of doors first, Nie. On this lovely summer’s day we should be on the lake.”
So we were, reader, one hour afterwards; but the sun was too bright; there were neither clouds nor wind, and the fish wouldn’t bite; so we pulled on shore, drew up our boat, and seated ourselves at the shady side of a great rock on a charming bit of greensward, and there we stayed for hours, Ben lazily talking and smoking, I listening in a dreamy kind of way, but enjoying my friend’s yarn all the same.
“Yes,” said Ben, “we were on special service. One day we would be dredging the bottom of the sea, the next day taking soundings. One day we would be shivering under polar skies, the next roasting under a tropical sun.”
“Come, come, be easy, Ben; be easy,” I cried, half-rising from the grass. “If you were under polar skies one day, how, in the name of mystery, could you be in the tropics next, Captain Roberts? I shall imagine you are going to draw the long bow, as the Yankees call it.”