“Hit’s me for the dungeon,” was the way he expressed his expectation of spending some time in the ship’s brig. “Good-bye, lads,” he said on parting from the Americans. “Yuh’re a bloomin’ bunch o’ sports, that’s wot’ yuh his. There’s no manner o’ doubt you Hamericans is hall right.”
“And you are all right, Bill, when you are sober,” George Belding said rather grumpily. “I hope I’ll never meet you again when you have been indulging in liquor.”
He said this with feeling; but Big Bill only grinned. “You’ll ’ave to visit me haboard ship, lad,” he said, shaking his head. “Wot’s bred hin the bone his bloomin’ ’ard to change, hand don’t yuh forget hit!”
George Belding merely grunted. He was in no pleasant mood because of the “hick” costume, as Frenchy called it, which he was obliged to wear aboard ship. The ridiculous garments and shoes occasioned much hilarity when they reached the Colodia’s launch.
“Hey! what you got there? Going to bring a cow along for him to milk?” was the jocular demand.
Isa Bopp, who would never be anything but a greenhorn himself, no matter how long he was at sea, demanded:
“Where did you fellers pick up that farmer?”
“Farmer yourself!” whispered Ikey behind the sharp of his hand. “It’s the port admiral in disguise. He’s going aboard to see Commander Lang on a secret mission. Something big’s coming off, Isa.”
“There’ll be something big come off when he shucks them shoes,” chuckled Bopp.
Meanwhile Phil Morgan was explaining to the petty officer in charge of the launch just who George Belding was, and how he came to be without a uniform. Belding would otherwise have had trouble getting aboard the Colodia, without his papers that the spy had run away with.