Then followed offense on offense. Was Samuel to be outdone on his own one-time field of action by an old ladies' darling? No!
When Abe sat for a half-hour in the lookout, up in the freezing, cold cupola, and did duty "jest to be smart," Samuel sat there on top of his own feet, too.
When Abe helped drag out the apparatus-cart over the heavy sands for the drill, Samuel helped, too. And how tugging at that rope brought back his lumbago!
When Abe rode in the breeches-buoy, Samuel insisted on playing the sole survivor of a shipwreck, too, and went climbing stiffly and lumberingly up the practice-mast.
Abraham refused to take a nap after dinner; so did Samuel. Abe went down to the out-door carpenter-shop in the grove, and planed a board just for the love of exertion. Samuel planed two boards and drove a nail.
"We've got two schoolboys with us," said the keeper and the crew.
"Ef I'd a-knowed that yew had more lives 'n my Maltese cat," Samuel was muttering over Abe by this time, "I'd—"
Count, count went Captain Darby's fingers. He heard the keeper rattling papers in the office just across the threshold, heard him say he was about to turn in, and guessed Samuel had better do likewise; but Samuel kept on counting.
Count, count went the arraigning fingers. Gradually he grew drowsy, but still he went over and over poor Abe's offenses, counting on until of a sudden he realized that he was no longer numbering the sins of his companion; he was measuring in minutes the time he must spend away from Blossy and Twin Coves, and the begonias, and the canary, and the cat.
What would Blossy say if she could feel the temperature of the room in which he was supposed to sleep? What would Blossy say if she knew how his back ached? Whatever would Blossy do to Abe Rose if she could suspect how he had tuckered out her "old man?"