“Excellency, perhaps they have in the hold little wheels turned by the rowers. There was talk of such a thing in Byzantium last year. Perhaps a knot a day.”
Now there had been no such talk at Byzantium. It was the reductio ad absurdum of the haughty and apparently learned Wahr. He winked at Nicht.
But Ruhet insisted all the more because of that saying of Wahr’s: “Ha-a! Is that so? It must be a pretty kind of toy, then. I want it.”
“So you shall,” said the second officer. “For does not the great admiral get everything he wants?”
“I have had no breakfast!”
“But you shall! Ay, before the day is done!” supplemented Wahr.
“Well, stop talking like a dictionary and get the toy for me. Then we’ll chase for food. Grace before meat, you know, aha, aha, ha!”
Nicht Wahr cast upon the unhappy Weiss Nicht a look of superior hatred; that he had by his impertinence rushed in where he had feared to tread, and had brought forth that bitter humor of Hier Ruhet’s.
“I desire, sir, that hereafter you will remain at your station to await my orders, or those of his excellency,” he said, “I will get the toy for him.”
“Oh, Wahr, tut, tut!” laughed the admiral, in high glee, because of the success of his humor. “Oh, Nicht, tut, tut! You must live as brothers aboard.”