“Och, ye bottle imp!” yelled the bereaved one, “don’t I know ye?” and seizing a tin pannikin, in his wrath, he threw it at the small monkey’s head with a force that would, had it been well directed, have smashed that small head effectually.
Jacko made a quick and graceful nod, and the pannikin, just missing Ailie, went over the side into the sea, where it sank and was lost for ever, to the regret of all, for they could ill afford to lose it.
“Ye’ve got it, ye have, but ye shan’t ait it,” growled Briant through his teeth, as he sprang over the seat towards the monkey.
Jacko bounded like a piece of indiarubber on to Gurney’s head; next moment he was clinging to the edge of the mainsail, and the next he was comfortably seated on the top of the mast, where he proceeded calmly and leisurely to “ait” the biscuit in the face of its exasperated and rightful owner.
“Oh,—Briant!” exclaimed Ailie, who was half frightened, half amused at the sudden convulsion caused by her favourite’s bad conduct, “don’t be vexed; see, here is a little bit of my biscuit; I don’t want it—really I don’t.”
Briant, who stood aghast and overwhelmed by his loss and by the consummate impudence of the small monkey, felt rebuked by this offer. Bursting into a loud laugh, he said, as he resumed his seat and the filling of his pipe—
“Sure I’d rather ait me own hat, Miss Ailie, an’ it’s be no means a good wan—without sarce, too, not even a blot o’ mustard—than take the morsel out o’ yer purty mouth. I wos more nor half jokin’, dear, an’ I ax yer parding for puttin’ ye in sich a fright.”
“Expensive jokin’,” growled Tarquin, “if ye throw a pannikin overboard every time you take to it.”
“Kape your tongue quiet,” said Briant, reddening, for he felt somewhat humbled at having given way to his anger so easily, and was nettled at the remark, coming as it did, in a sneering spirit, from a man for whom he had no particular liking.
“Never mind, Briant,” interposed the captain quickly, with a good-humoured laugh; “I feel for you, lad. Had it been myself I fear I should have been even more exasperated. I would not sell a crumb of my portion just now for a guinea.”