“You don’t like storms, do you?”
“Oh no, ’Tonio; I don’t like the sea when it wobbles and splashes too much, you know.”
“Well, dearie, here in this dark weedy ocean there will be no wobbling and never a splash, and you shall catch fish all day if you like, and be as happy as a dickie-bird.”
“Oh, that will be jolly. Won’t it, Barclay?
“Perfectly jolly!” laughed our young hero.
There was a good quarter of an hour’s silence after this.
Everybody appeared to be thinking except Teenie, who was making love to Muffie the cat and talking low to her.
“I say, sir,” said Barclay Stuart at last, “we have resolved ourselves into a kind of Quaker’s meeting, but it would be interesting to know what we’ve been all thinking about.”
“Well, you begin,” said Antonio, smiling.
“I’ve been thinking that we’ll have a real good quiet time of it for six months in this strange sea, and that Davie Drake and I will by that time be fit to pass our exams for chief officers as soon as we get back to Merrie England.”