"I thought the child was going to jump overboard," added Mrs. Montague, with a strong tremor passing through her frame.
The details of the affair were repeated, and then all eyes were directed at Little Bobtail, who was more concerned about the propriety of his conduct at the table than about his deeds at Blank Island; but probably, if he had fed himself with his knife, his admiring friends would cheerfully have forgiven him. He found it more difficult to transfer mashed potato from his plate to his mouth with the silver fork than it was to dive off that cliff into the sea. When the pastry came on, it was absolutely appalling to think of eating custard pie with a fork, and he would rather have undertaken the feat of swimming around Blank Island.
"You know I always shovel in custard pie with my knife," said he, afterwards, in telling his mother about it; "but everybody else used a fork, and so I had to."
But Bobtail magnified the trials and tribulations of that grand dinner in the cabin of the Penobscot, for, by keeping his "weather eye" open, he hardly sinned against any of the proprieties of polite society, and some of the ladies even remarked how well he behaved for a poor boy. The dinner was finished at last, and "it was a tip-top dinner, too," for besides chowder and fried fish, there were roast beef and roast chicken, boiled salmon, puddings, pies, and ice-cream. Perhaps Bobtail ate too much for strict gentility, but he excused himself by declaring that not only the stewards, but all the party, "kept making him eat more of the fixins."
"When I got through that dinner, mother," said he, "I was just like a foot-ball blown up for a game; and if the captain's trousers that I wore hadn't been a mile too big for me, I couldn't have put myself outside of half that feed."
After the dinner, which Bobtail will remember as long as he lives, the party went on deck. Grace was as bright and fresh as ever. She and Emily walked up and down the deck. The young skipper went forward to talk with the crew, for he did not wish them to think that he was putting on airs because he "took his grub in the cabin." The men congratulated him on his good fortune, and assured him he had made a rich and powerful friend, and that he would get a pile of money by the operation. Bobtail thought that a hundred dollars was "a pile of money," and, if any one claimed the Skylark, this sum would enable him to purchase a better boat than Prince's old tub. But he did not think much about this matter; in fact, he was gazing at Miss Grace and Miss Emily, as they walked so gracefully on the deck. He was not sentimental, romantic, or very visionary; but these two young ladies were so pretty, and so elegant, and so finely dressed, that he could not help looking at them; besides, they were as sociable now as he could wish. Bobtail joined them in their promenade on the deck, and was admitted to the privilege with distinguished consideration.
"I should like to have you take a sail with me in the Skylark," said he.
"O, I should like to go ever so much," replied Miss Walker.
"And if you get overboard, I will pull you out."
"I don't mean to get overboard, if I can help it," laughed the little miss, though, from her conversation with Grace, one would have thought she considered it rather a nice thing, if she could only be rescued by a young gentleman.