“Hullo!” cried Jerrold at the sight of the slumbering lamb, seizing hold of the blankets. “Out you go, my hearty; and confound your cheek for taking possession of my crib!”
With these words, giving a good tug, Weeks was rolled out on the deck, tumbling on his head. This angered him greatly, and he got up as red as a turkey cock, with the freckles on his face coming out in strong relief.
Seeing that Tom Jerrold was the culprit, however, he soon quieted down, being an arrant sneak and afraid of him.
“What did you do that for?” he whined. “I was only having a nap.”
“You’re always napping,” retorted Tom; “and I should like to know what the dickens you mean by going snoozing in my bunk? I’ve half a mind to punch your head. The next time I catch you at it I’ll keelhaul you, Master Sammy, by Jupiter!”
Jerrold kept on grumbling away, pretending to be very angry; and he frightened Weeks so that he forgot the ugly knock he had received on his own head, and apologised abjectly for the offence he had committed. Tom then allowed his assumed indignation to pass away, and forgave him on the condition that he took away all the spare crockery ware, which the steward had stowed in the top bunk of the deck-house, into the cuddy, giving it to the Portuguese with his, Tom’s, compliments.
Weeks thereupon proceeded to execute this mission, Jerrold and I awaiting the result with much anticipated enjoyment, Tom saying to me confidentially as he started for the cuddy, “Won’t Pedro carry-on at him! I wouldn’t be in the young fool’s shoes for something.”
The denouement justified our expectations; for, no sooner had Weeks entered the passage way than he came flying out again looking awfully scared, a tremendous crash following as if all the crockery ware was pitched after him, bang! Next, we heard Pedro swearing away in his native tongue, and kicking his preserved meat tins about his pantry at such a rate that Captain Gillespie sang out on the poop above, and sent Matthews down the companion to find out what he was making all the row about. This finally quieted the steward down, but subdued mutterings came to our ears from the cuddy for long afterwards, Pedro never having been so roused up before, not even when Tim Rooney tackled him on the previous day.
Weeks got very angry on our laughing at him when he returned crestfallen to the deck-house, and he went off forwards in high dudgeon; but this did not make any difference to us, we being rather pleased at getting rid of his company—at least I was, for one. So we went on arranging the chests and things in the little cabin until we ultimately made it quite ship-shape and comfortable. As Jerrold had proposed, he had his chest on one side of the doorway and mine and Weeks’s were now stowed alongside our bunks, just sufficient space and no more being left for us to open them without having to shift them, and also to get in and out of the cabin.
“Be jabers ye’ve made a tidy job av it, lads,” said the boatswain, coming up as we finished, and surveying approvingly our arrangements. “I couldn’t have done it no betther mesilf! Ye can well-nigh swing a cat round, which it would a poozled ye to a-done afore, faix. An’ sure, Misther Gray-ham, does ye loike bayin’ at say yit?”