“If you had said the boots with the boy in them, Jessie,” observed Kate, “you would have been nearer the mark!”
In a few minutes, Billy, fully alive to his importance in the ladies’ eyes, sat gravely in the midst of them answering rapid questions.
“You’ve not had tea, Billy, I hope,” said Ruth, rising and ringing the bell.
“No, miss, I haven’t, an’ if I had, I’m always game for two teas.”
Soon Billy was engaged with bread, butter, cakes, and jam, besides other luxuries, some of which he had never even dreamed of before.
“What an excellent appetite you have!” said Jessie Seaward, scarcely able to restrain her admiration.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Billy, accepting another bun with much satisfaction, “we usually does pretty well in the Short Blue in that way, though we don’t have sich grub as this to tickle our gums with. You see, we has a lot o’ fresh air out on the North Sea, an’ it’s pretty strong air too—specially when it blows ’ard. W’y, I’ve seed it blow that ’ard that it was fit to tear the masts out of us; an’ once it throw’d us right over on our beam-ends.”
“On what ends, boy?” asked Mrs Dotropy, who was beginning to feel interested in the self-sufficient little fisherman.
“Our beam-ends, ma’am. The beams as lie across under the deck, so that w’en we gits upon their ends, you know, we’re pretty well flat on the water.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Jessie; “but when that happens how can you walk the deck?”