“Is it?” cried Paul Jones, whose spirits rose high at the prospect of once more taking his ship to sea. “Gentlemen, shall we send for Green to give us a new patriotic song he has?”
“Yes, yes,” they all exclaimed, “a song, by all means!”
Danny therefore was sent after Bill, who was found trolling forth in his rich baritone to the admiring foks’l people, and occasionally getting up and shaking a leg to give emphasis to his music.
“Mr. Green,” said Danny, going up to him, “you must report to the cap’n immediate for a song. He knows as how you’ve got a good ’un, and the cap’n and the officers wants to hear it—that there one about a Yankee ship and a Yankee crew.”
“Sho!” said Bill with an affectation of great reluctance, “I knows as you wuthless, tale-bearin’ lubberly boy went and told the cap’n I had a new song, and I’ve a great mind to give you the cat for it.”
“Lord, Mr. Green, I ain’t done no harm,” said Danny apologetically, who understood the case perfectly, and knew there was no danger of the cat. “The cap’n knows you sing grand, and ’twarn’t my fault he axed for you.”
“Well, mates,” said Bill, rising with a delighted grin, “it’s mighty hard on me havin’ to leave you. I’d ruther not sing if I could help it, but orders is orders, you know. Howsomedever, young’un,” he remarked to Danny, “the very next time you gits me in a singin’ scrape like this, I’m a-goin’ to skin you, mind that!”
“Yes, sir,” answered Danny very meekly.
The officers were all sitting around the table with pipes, and full of talk, laughter, and jollity, when Bill Green’s handsome figure and face appeared in the wardroom door. Bill, as usual, pretended to be quite overcome with bashfulness, and twiddled his cap modestly.
“Give him a glass of punch to wet his whistle,” cried Paul Jones, and Danny Dixon officiously filled a glass from the punch bowl and handed it to him.