They well might look, for Jacko, or Dosie, as he was as often called, and his pipe had shinned up the main-top-gallant mast, and actually seated himself on the gilded truck.
Who would volunteer to “speel” up after him? Barclay would and did. Not a tree in all England he could not have got to the top of, and not a flagstaff either.
So up he goes, and, clasping the thin mast with hands and knees, commences the dangerous ascent. It is hard work, for high up here the mast is describing the arc of a circle, and the motion makes him giddy. He is not to be denied, however. A brave British heart beats within him, and so he does what brave Captain Webb did when swimming from England to France—he just keeps “pegging away.”
But the monkey even now has the best of it. Unconscious apparently of his danger, he is carefully examining the pipe. Then he puts it in his mouth and pretends to smoke, and very old-fashioned he does look. He tires of this, and pulls out a morsel of tobacco. This he puts in his mouth, then spits and splutters.
“Faugh!” he seems to say, “how can those big white sailor apes use such stuff? I’ll drop it into the sea.”
His little arm is lowered along the mast, and the pipe is dropped. It is a good half yard from Barclay, but he dashes out his body and arm, and never on cricket field was ball more deftly caught.
One wild cheer bursts from every part of the ship, low and aloft, and is three times repeated.
“Come on my shoulder, Jacko, old man,” says Barclay.
The old man does so, and down they come, but the poor monkey looks so thoroughly penitent and lovable, that not even the cooper has the heart to scold him.
“Oh, you good, brave Dosie,” cries Teenie, running aft with him in her arms.