“Sail to-morrow? Your grandmother!” he answered with his usual grin. I believe that chap would have grinned if you had told him his father was dead, for he looked on everything from a humorous point of view and could not help laughing even when the captain spoke to him, which often got him in for an extra mast-heading. “Why, we haven’t got in our lower deck guns yet, booby, let alone our powder and ammunition; besides all sorts of stores we could not ship in harbour!”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, somewhat crestfallen at his “snub,” “I didn’t think of that.”
“I suppose not,” replied he, mimicking me, “but you have a good deal to learn yet, let me tell you. Hullo, though, Master Squaretoes, what do you mean by coming on the quarter-deck with nails in your boots? You’ll have the first lieutenant after you, my joker, if he notices it, and there’ll be the dickens to pay, I can tell you!”
“What do you mean?” I retorted indignantly. “I have not got any nails in my boots at all.”
“Haven’t you, young shaver?” said he, grinning again and looking down with mock pity at the pumps I wore, which were guiltless of even the smallest tack, being all sewn, as I held up the soles for his inspection. “Then, all I can say is I’m sorry for you! I really didn’t think you were deformed—and such a young and promising chap, too!”
I got alarmed at this.
“Deformed!” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“Why, if you haven’t any nails in your boots, or shoes—it doesn’t matter which, but we’ll say boots for argument’s sake,” said my tormentor quizzingly—“it follows, naturally and logically, that you have none on your toes! In which case, my poor young friend, you must be suffering from a malformation of the feet; or, in other words, you are deformed, according to Euclid, quid demonstrandum est, twiggy vous?”
“Oh, yes, I see,” said I, feeling rather nettled, I confess, at his thus taking a rise out of me. “You think that funny, I suppose; but, I call it both silly and vulgar!”
“‘Silly!’ ‘vulgar!’ You very small fragment of impudence,” rejoined Larkyns, highly delighted at being thus successful in “pulling my leg” and making me angry, “I’ll have you keel-hauled for speaking so disrespectfully to your superior officer, sir. Beg my pardon instantly, or—”