“Well, boy,” demanded the skipper again, “were you sent here to find me?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lumpy, with his eyes still fixed on the earnest little face of Eve. “Mister Jay sent me to say he wants to speak to you about the heel o’ the noo bowsprit.”
“Tell him I’ll be aboard in half an hour.”
“I didn’t know before,” said Eve, “that bowsprits have heels.”
At this Lumpy opened his large mouth, nearly shut his small eyes, and was on the point of giving vent to a rousing laugh, when his commander half rose and seized hold of a wooden stool. The boy shut his mouth instantly, and fled into the street, where he let go the laugh which had been thus suddenly checked.
“Well, she is a rum ’un!” he said to himself, as he rolled in a nautical fashion down to the wharf where the Lively Poll was undergoing repairs.
“I think he’s a funny boy, that,” said Eve, as the skipper stooped to kiss her.
“Yes, he is a funny dog. Good-bye, my pretty one.”
“Stay,” said Eve solemnly, as she laid her delicate little hand on the huge brown fist of the fisherman; “you’ve often told me stories, Stephen; I want to tell one to you to-night. You need not sit down; it’s a very, very short one.”
But the skipper did sit down, and listened with a look of interest and expectation as the child began—