Bunny wondered for a moment how the captain knew about the accident with the string and the bent pin, but then he guessed that one of the crew told the others and so the story got around.
“You’ll be careful, will you, Bunny?” asked the captain, playfully shaking his finger at the little boy.
“Oh, yes, sir, I’ll be careful,” he promised.
Bunny asked his father for a real hook to fasten on the piece of cord, but Mr. Brown told the little fellow that it would be hard to catch fish on the simple cord.
“To get fish from a fast-moving steamer, Bunny,” said Mr. Brown, “you must have a very long line that will go away out beyond the propeller, and such a line must be very strong. Then, too, since it is pulled through the water very fast, there is not much chance for a fish to take the bait. Better wait until we anchor, and then it will be easier to fish.”
So Bunny, knowing his father’s advice was good, gave up the idea of trying to catch fish for the family dinner and found something else with which to amuse himself on the ship. There was plenty to do, and more to see, so he and Sue were not lonesome, though they could not run around as much nor roam as far as they could in the woods and fields at home.
“If Mr. Pott was here with us,” said Sue to Bunny that afternoon when they had finished playing a game of tag, “maybe he could find his ship with his son Harry on it and the treasure.”
“No, he couldn’t find it,” decided Bunny, after thinking it over.
“Why not?” Sue asked.
“Because the Mary Bell was sunk,” said Bunny. “It went down in the ocean. So how could Mr. Pott find it, even if he was here—and he isn’t here?”