"Never mind me, sir. I'm used to it," laughed Bobtail.
"You will catch cold."
"Catch a weasel asleep! I don't catch cold."
Colonel Montague insisted, and the sailing-master lent him a shirt and a pair of trousers twice too big for him, and Bobtail put himself inside of them. His bobtail coat and shoes, which had been brought from the island, were dry, and he was in presentable condition. Grace soon appeared, her hair nicely dried and dressed anew, wearing a white dress and a blue sacque. She looked very pretty; but Bobtail thought that Emily Walker was the prettier of the two. By this time dinner was ready, and the skipper of the Skylark was invited to dine in the cabin. He did not exactly like the idea, for he felt that he was not sufficiently posted in the ways of genteel society to sit at the table with such grand people.
"I'll take my grub with the hands forward, sir," said he, laughing. "I shall feel more at home with them."
"But we shall not feel at home without you, my lad," replied Colonel Montague. "Besides, when everybody gets cooled off, we want to talk over the affair on the island, for I haven't even heard how Grace happened to be in the water."
The owner of the Penobscot would not "let him up," as Bobtail expressed it when he told his mother the story, and he was placed at the table between Grace and Emily Walker. Chowder was served first. Bobtail kept his "weather eye" open to see how the rest of the party did, and adjusted his conduct by theirs. He wondered what "those towels were stuck into the tumblers for;" but when little Miss Walker unrolled her napkin, and placed it in her lap, and the gentlemen of the party did the same, he followed their example.
"Now, Grace, tell me how you got overboard," said Colonel Montague, when the soup plates were removed.
Mrs. Montague shuddered, for the scene was too terrible to be recalled with anything but anguish.
"Captain Bobtail had just told Emily and me a story about an Indian girl who jumped off that same cliff; but I didn't believe a word of it," Grace began. "I stood up on a stone near the edge, and swung my arms, for I was thinking just how the Indian girl looked, if she really did jump off that cliff. Just then mother screamed, and frightened me. I started back; but the stone I was standing on rolled over, and threw me forward, so that I went down into the water head first."