“But,” said the Greenland mariner, “come and dine with the old man to-morrow. The last of the young seals will be on board by then, and we’ll have had a wash down; we’ll be clean and tidy like. Then hurrah for the old seals! That’s sport, if you like!—that’s fair play.”
“Ah!” said McBain, “your heart is in the right place, I can see that. I wish there were more like you. Do you seal on Sunday? Many do.”
Silas looked solemn. “I knows they do,” he said, “but Silas hasn’t done so yet, and he prays he never may be tempted to.”
“Captain Grig, we’ll come and dine with you, and we expect you to pay us the same compliment another day.”
“I daresay you fellows are glad to get home?” said Ralph, rising from the sofa and throwing down the volume he had been dreaming over.
“Not a bit of it!” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath; and Rory added, “You don’t know what a funny ship a real Greenlandman is! I declare you’ve lost a treat!”
“Does it smell badly?” asked Ralph, with a slight curl of his upper lip.
“Never a taste!” says Rory; “she’s as sweet as cowslips or clover, or newly-made hay; and the bun was beautiful!”
“The what?” said Ralph.
“Don’t tell him?” cried Allan; “don’t tell him!”