“Something nice.”
“What’s it like?” asked Dick, sniffing hard. “I don’t smell anything.”
Emmeline sniffed again to make sure.
“Flowers,” said she.
The breeze, which had shifted several points since midday, was bearing with it a faint, faint odour: a perfume of vanilla and spice so faint as to be imperceptible to all but the most acute olfactory sense.
“Flowers!” said the old sailor, tapping the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot. “And where’d you get flowers in middle of the say? It’s dhramin’ you are. Come now—to bed wid yiz!”
“Fill it again,” wailed Dick, referring to the pipe.
“It’s a spankin’ I’ll give you,” replied his guardian, lifting him down from the timber baulks, and then assisting Emmeline, “in two ticks if you don’t behave. Come along, Em’line.”
He started aft, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing.
As they passed the ship’s bell, Dick stretched towards the belaying pin that was still lying on the deck, seized it, and hit the bell a mighty bang. It was the last pleasure to be snatched before sleep, and he snatched it.