“Jim Elder stole some apples from my father’s barn, and my father licked him good,” he suggested.
“Apples! Apples!” The Head Captain frowned terribly, adding with biting irony: “I s’pose Jim Elder’s a Pirate! I s’pose he wears a uniform! I s’pose he knows the ways this gang knows! I s’pose he meets in a barrel like this! Huh?”
There was no answer, and the Head Captain settled his mask more firmly. “Come on!” he said.
They looked at the sharp edge of the hogshead; it was far away. They looked inquiringly at the Vicar; she dropped her eyes. Oh, Woman, in your hours of ease you can devise fine secret places, you can lead us to them, but can you bring us back to the outer world and the reality you seduced us from? There was an embarrassing pause. The seconds seemed hours. Would they die in this old, smelly barrel?
The Head Captain smiled to himself.
“I guess you kids never’d git out o’ here unless I showed you how!” he remarked cheerfully.
“Forward! March!” He took the one step possible, and scowled because they did not follow him.
“Don’t you see?” he said irritably. “When I say ‘three,’ fall over. Now, one—two—three!”
He pushed the Lieutenant and the Vicar against the side of the barrel, and precipitated himself against them. The barrel wavered, tottered, and fell with a bang on its side, the subordinate officers jouncing and gasping, unhappy cushions for their Head Captain, who crawled out over them, adjusted his collar, and strode off across the chicken yard. At the gate they caught up with him.
