Rover’s look of dejection on being left behind at home in the morning was nothing to that of his young master now; the latter appearing, from his blackened face and rumpled collar, not to speak of his soiled suit of flannels, so beautifully white and clean the moment before, to have “been in the wars” with a vengeance!
“Why, what have you been doing with yourself?” exclaimed the Captain, in blank dismay. “Where have you been?”
Albeit dilapidated in his general exterior, Bob had not lost his voice; his powers of speech being happily still unimpaired.
“I’m all right,” he answered with an attempt at a grin. “I’m all right!”
“But where have you been?” repeated the Captain, whom this off-hand statement did not quite satisfy. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, I got blown up,” explained Bob. “When the gun fired I felt an awful pain in my ears, as if somebody was running a red-hot needle through them going right down to my boots!”
“You must have long ears, youngster,” remarked the young lieutenant slily here. “Very long to reach so far!”
“I didn’t mean that my ears went down to my boots,” replied Bob, rather nettled at the insinuation; and he then continued the account of his experiences of the explosion. “But, as I was saying, I first felt this pain; and then I seemed to be lifted off my feet, tumbling down this ladder here, and after that through a hole in the deck, amongst a lot of coal-dust and oil-cans, that messed my clothes a bit.”
“A bit?” queried the Captain, chuckling now with much satisfaction at seeing him unhurt—“I should say a good deal, judging by appearances, Master Bob!”
“Really?” said he surveying himself ruefully, turning and twisting so as to get a view of his back. “Well, I certainly am dirty, but I didn’t look half so bad before I came up.”