“The stair, too, wouldn’t be too high to get her down now and again, and a boat could be handy to shove her into without much exertion. For the matter of that,” said the Captain, looking out, “we might have a slide made, like a Swiss couloir, you know, and she could glissade comfortably into the boat out o’ the winder. Then, there’s a beam to hang her ship an’ Chinee lanterns from, an’ a place over the fireplace to stick her knick-knacks. What d’ee think, my lad?”
Gillie, who had begun to allow a ray of light to enter his mind, gave, as his answer, an emphatic nod and a broad grin.
The Captain replied with a nod and a wink, whereupon the other retired behind his patron, for the purpose of giving himself a quiet hug of delight, in which act, however, he was caught; the Captain being one who always, according to his own showing, kept his weather-eye open.
“W’y, what’s the matter with you, boy?”
“Pains in the stummick is aggrawatin’ sometimes,” answered Gillie.
“You haven’t got ’em, have you?”
“Well, I can’t exactly go for to say as I has,” answered Gillie, with another grin.
“Now, look ’ee here, youngster,” said the Captain, suddenly seizing the spider by his collar and trousers, and swinging him as though about to hurl him through the window into the river, “if you go an’ let your tongue wag in regard to this matter, out you go, right through the port-hole—d’ee see?”
He set the spider quietly on his legs again, who replied, with unruffled coolness—
“Mum’s the word, Cappen.”