"Did they?" asked Joe, as Jonas paused in his story to count plates.
"No, they didn't. They got enough of it; and when the third week was ended, and the fog was packed down tighter than ever, one of 'em said, 'Come, boys, I'll give it up. I am completely mildewed now, inside and out. We have eaten and drunk and breathed fog for twenty-one days, and for once I've had enough of one thing.'"
"Well, Jonas, go on; what did the rest do?" asked David.
"Why, they all said 'Amen,' and packed up as quick as they could, and got into the yacht, and started for the nearest shore. We had to go by the compass, because we'd no idea where the sun was. Part of the way we rowed, and part of the way we drifted, and by-and-by we got ashore. Once in a while I see one of them fellows, and they laugh about it now, and call it a good joke; but they didn't laugh much then."
"You didn't neither, I'm sure," said Freitag, shrugging his shoulders.
"You are right there. I felt like I could bite a board-nail, for I had to work around, good weather or bad. No, there was only one fellow that called it funny, after the first two or three days; and that man nearly killed himself laughing about it! That fellow would have found a queer side to his own tombstone. He laughed about the fog, and he laughed at the way the other fellows took it; and he laughed so when he left the island, that the others threatened to throw him overboard. I've never seen him but once since, and he began again as soon as he spied me; and he dragged me into a shop and bought me a nice pipe, laughing all the time the shopman was doing it up. 'That was a jolly trip, Jonas!' says he; and I heard him chuckling after I left him.--But goodness, Freitag, ring that bell! the breakfast will be stone-cold."
"You don't suppose this will last," said Max Bernard disconsolately. "Our tent is dripping now. We'll all be sick!"
"Sick! nonsense! You won't get cold in a salt fog," cried Walter Martin.
"It will most likely end in a big storm," exclaimed Jonas croakingly, feeling quite safe in making such a prophecy.
The boys groaned at the suggestion, and one of them remarked that "there was nothing so consoling in dull weather as making toffy."