“Oh, yes, I recollect,” said Eric. “I will keep a good look-out for them now you say they’re worth looking after!”
And he did.
The two male birds, who first came, were succeeded on the following day by half a dozen more, a large number coming later on the same afternoon.
All these penguins were in their best plumage, and very fat and lazy, contenting themselves with lolling about the beach for a day or two, as if to recover from the fatigues of their journey.
Then, after a solemn conference together close to the rookery, the birds began to prepare their nests, so as to be ready for the reception of the females, which did not make their appearance for nearly a month after the first male penguins were seen.
A fortnight later, there was in almost each nest an egg of a pale blue colour, very round in shape and about the size of a turkey’s—the sight of which much gratified Master Eric, who, fearless of consequences, made a point of investigating the tussock-grass colony every morning. He called the birds habitat his “poultry yard,” seeming to be quite unmindful of his mishap there the previous year; although now, as the penguins had not begun regularly to sit yet, they were not so noisy or troublesome as when he then intruded on their domain. Besides, as the sailor lad argued, the eggs were uncommonly good eating, and well worth risk getting them.
September came; and the brother crusoes were all agog with excitement, watching for the expected coming of the old Yankee skipper.
“Do you know what to-day is?” asked Fritz one morning, as Eric woke him up in turning out.
“What a fellow you are for dates!” exclaimed the other. “You ought to go and live in the East, where they cultivate them, brother! No, I can’t say I recollect what day it is. Tuesday, is it not?”
“I don’t mean that,” said Fritz petulantly. “I alluded to the sort of anniversary, that’s all.”