And they fell laughing into each other’s arms.
When Ruhet could stop laughing, he went on: “Well, we’ll give ’em some war! Ho! ho! Then we’ll look for that soup-spring. Who told you about it, Wahr? Not to hurt, you know, but just to skeer ’em. I like to skeer people. We’ll soon be on ’em. We are going a great gait, anyhow. What do you suppose it is, Wahr?”
“About six knots, excellency,” said the great Wahr.
“Bah! By my mother’s wig, we must be doing at least thirty by the way we are approaching the toy!”
“Sire, six is our limit.”
Nicht Wahr looked and was puzzled nevertheless. The distance between them was certainly lessening rapidly. As he went to calculate their speed upon the slate, Weiss Nicht stepped up to the admiral and said, “She is approaching us at that rate, excellency.”
“Impossible,” stormed the admiral. “No ship with sails can go as fast as ours—let alone this little nin-comninny, with none at all. The Tonans is the limit, sir. But, all the same, I’ve changed my mind again—I want it. I will have it! Don’t go away from it. Port your helm an ell. Weiswasser [to the steersman at the wheel], I really want the thing. For, by the tail of the ship’s cat, it gets prettier and prettier as we come nearer to it.”
“And so you shall,” said the cunning Nicht Wahr, returning, as a slap at the assurance of the impotent Weiss Nicht, in his absence.
Now the craft was near enough to show a gilt name on her bow.
“Nicht Wahr,” said Ruhet, “your eyes are better than mine, and you have swallowed the dictionary; what is she?”