“What did he say to you?”
“He ordered me to be silent, and another nob did the same thing. I offered to fight them both, and I would have liked to show them what an English boy’s fist is made of; but the cowards set the boatswain on me again. I would have licked him if he had fought fair; but he caught me foul, and I could do nothing. I meant to be even with that big boatswain, and I think I am,” said Clyde, rubbing his hands again with delight, and laughing heartily when he thought of his brilliant achievement.
“Well, what did you do?”
“I just waited till the ship got to Christiania; and then, when all the students were at dinner, I found the big boatswain sitting on a beam that runs out over the water—I forget what they call the beam, but it’s at the bow of the ship.”
“The bowsprit,” suggested Paul.
“No; I know the bowsprit. It wasn’t that. There was another beam like it on the other side.”
“O, the cat-head!”
“That’s just it. Well, I went up to the big boatswain, and asked him to look at a ship,—or a ’mofferdite brig, he called it. He looked, and I just gave him a push, which dropped him off the cat’s head into the bay,” continued Clyde, who told his story with many a chuckle and many a laugh, seeming to enjoy it hugely himself, in spite of the want of sympathy on the part of his listener.
“You pushed him overboard!” exclaimed Paul.
“That I did, and did it handsomely, too. He never knew what hurt him till he struck the water. He swam for the bow, and I dropped into a boat, and came ashore. I saw him climb up to the deck, but I was out of his way then. Wasn’t that cleverly done?”