Jacko spread his arms on Briant’s broad chest—they were too short to go round his neck—laid his head thereon, and sighed. Perhaps he felt penitent on account of his wickedness; but it is more probable that he felt uneasy in body rather than in mind.
“I say, Briant,” cried Gurney.
“That’s me,” answered the other.
“If you are Jacko’s self-appointed uncle, and Miss Ailie is his adopted mother, wot relation is Miss Ailie to you?”
“You never does nothin’ right, Gurney,” interposed Nikel Sling; “you can’t even preepound a pruposition. Here’s how you oughter to ha’ put it. If Phil Briant be Jacko’s uncle, and Miss Ailie his adopted mother—all three bein’ related in a sorter way by bein’ shipmates, an’ all on us together bein’ closely connected in vartue of our bein’ messmates—wot relation is Gurney to a donkey?”
“That’s a puzzler,” said Gurney, affecting to consider the question deeply.
“Here’s a puzzler wot’ll beat it, though,” observed Tim Rokens; “suppose we all go on talkin’ stuff till doomsday, w’en’ll the boat be finished?”
“That’s true,” cried Dick Barnes, resuming work with redoubled energy; “take that young thief to his mother, Phil, and tell her to rope’s-end him. I’m right glad to find, though, that he is the thief arter all, and not one o’ us.”
On examination being made, it was found that the broken and empty brandy-bottle lay on the floor of the monkey’s nest, and it was conjectured, from the position in which it was discovered, that that dissipated little creature, having broken off the neck in order to get at the brandy, had used the body of the bottle as a pillow whereon to lay its drunken little head. Luckily for its own sake, it had spilt the greater part of the liquid, with which everything in its private residence was saturated and perfumed.
On having ocular demonstration of the depravity of her pet, Ailie at first wept, then, on beholding its eccentric movements, she laughed in spite of herself.