“Thanks, much,” responded the chaplain; “I should be delighted.”
“Well, you see,” began the lieutenant, starting off with his yarn and quarter-deck walk again simultaneously, “we had a lot of raw marine lads who had just enlisted sent us from Forton to complete our complement; and, one of these green hands, as luck would have it, was placed as sentry on the poop by the sergeant of the guard, the first day he came aboard, though he’d probably never seen a ship in his life before. You see, eh?”
“Ah!” ejaculated the chaplain as “Joe” turned abruptly when close up to the taffrail and nearly twisted him off his legs. “Yes, I—ah—see.”
“When the poor jolly was put on sentry,” continued the lieutenant, bolstering up Mr Smythe with his arm and just saving him in the nick of time from coming to grief again over a ringbolt on the deck, “the sergeant told him he would have to call out when the bell was struck, thinking, of course, he knew all about it. The poor fellow, though, as you are aware, was quite ignorant of the custom; so, as soon as the sergeant’s back was turned, he asked one of the men of the starboard watch standing by, ‘What am I to call out when they strike the bell?’
“‘Life-buoy!’ replied the other. ‘Life-buoy!’
“‘All right, chummy, I thank you kindly,’ said the young marine, full of gratitude; and so, when, by-and-by, Two Bells were struck, he called out in a voice that could be heard all over the ship, ‘Live boy!’”
“He—he—he!” chuckled the chaplain in his feeble way, he and Mr Jellaby coming to a stop, I was glad to see, close to where I stood. “That was funny! Very, very funny!”
“Nothing to what’s coming,” went on Mr Jellaby, pleased that his efforts at comic narrative under such difficulties had been so far successful, the chaplain not objecting to the secular amusement from any conscientious scruples. “Well, as soon as the ignorant chaw-bacon chap yelled out this, which naturally made everyone who heard it laugh, although they put the mistake down to the poor fellow’s provincial pronunciation, he turns to the man who had previously instructed him and asks in a proud sort of way, as if seeking praise for his performance, ‘Say, how did I sing out that, chum?’
“‘Very well,’ replied the other, who, if he had advised him in good faith in the first instance, on now seeing the result of his teaching was anxious to take a rise out of the ‘stupid jolly,’ as he thought him. ‘But, chummy, you’ll have to do different next time.’
“‘Oh!’ exclaimed the marine. ‘What shall I have to sing out, then?’