“She ain’t much to look at now,” said a bluejacket, “athout the main and mizen, but we’ll make her as trig as a new piano. Heave round, lads,” he shouted, “and trim decks.”
“Good!” said Archie; “I think I can leave the men in your hands. I’m going to teach the boys a bit.”
“You come up in two hours, sir,” said Jack Hodder, “and see wot you sees like.”
Archie was a splendid sailor and excellent scholar, and for two hours every forenoon he coached Davie Drake and Barclay Stuart.
The former was almost a man now, quite a man in his own estimation—eighteen, you know, and this made Barclay sixteen.
Well, I like such lads as these. I would not give a fig for a boy who had no pride of self, and no assurance in him. It is boys with nerve and vim that are going to make the world hum one of these days. Your dull, “dour,” bashful “loons” have no more brains than a mangold-wurzel, and can never to any extent benefit themselves nor those around them.
When Archie did come on deck again he found all things sweet and nice, decks scoured and white, ropes coiled, brass and wood work polished, and the men dressed in their white ducks.
He called Jack Hodder and thanked him; then he cast his eyes aloft, and who should he see in the foretop but Teenie herself, with pussy and the monkeys. How the cat had got up was a mystery, but Muffie was no ordinary puss.
“Oh, come up, come up,” she cried excitedly. “Come up, Captain Archie. Some awful, awful beast in the water. Oh, I is feared it will swallow up the ship.”
Archie hurried up the ratlines, and the sight he saw was really a strange one.