"What does he want?" shouted Dick. "Here, Grit! Stop it! Come here! What does he want, Hans?"
"He vants me, but, py Jimminity, he don't got me, not if I knows it alretty yet!" responded the German. "I fools him!" and with that the cook, dropping his plate of meat, sprang up into the shrouds of the aftermast.
At once Grit lost interest in the chase, and stopped to eat the scraps of meat, while Hans looked down at him from his perch of safety.
"There, you see," said Dick, laughing. "The meat was all he wanted. Grit was hungry."
"Ha! I knows pretty vell alretty dot he vos hungry," admitted Hans. "But I t'ought he vos hungry after me; so!"
"He was hungry after you," cried Paul Drew, who had witnessed the chase, and he doubled up with laughter.
"You can come down now," suggested Dick. "Grit won't hurt you."
"Vait until he has all dot meat eaten up, den I comes down," replied Hans. "He vunt be hungry so much alretty," and he would not descend until Grit, licking his chops, had gone to lie down in the sun.
"How did it happen?" asked the young millionaire. "I never knew Grit to chase any of his friends."
"I ain't no friend to him—not no more—no, sir," declared Hans, firmly. "I vos goin' to feed der dogs, as you tolt me, Herr Hamilton, und I got der meat, und I gif der little dog some first, und den your big dog, he growled avay down in his throat, und he took after me, un—vell—I runs, mit der meat—dot's all; see?"