“O, isn’t that splendid?—won’t you tell us now?” inquired William.
“And knock off telling you what the Dean and I were doing up there by the North Pole, on that island without a name?”
William was a little puzzled to know what reply he should make to that, for he thought the Captain looked as if he did not half like what he had said; so he satisfied himself with exclaiming, “No, no, no,” a great number of times, and then asked, “But won’t you tell us all about them when you get out of the North Pole scrape?”
“Maybe so, my lad, maybe so; we’ll see about that; one thing at a time is a good rule in story-telling as well as in other matters. And now you may look at all these things, and when you are satisfied, and I have got done putting them to rights, we’ll go on with the story again.”
The children were greatly delighted with everything they saw, and they passed a very happy hour, helping the Captain to put his cabin in “ship-shape order,” as he said. Then they all crowded up into one corner, and the Captain, seated on an old camp-stool, which had evidently seen much service in a great number of places, did as he had promised.
What he said, however, deserves a chapter by itself; and so we’ll turn another leaf and start fresh again.