“You must remember we are not sailors like you,” interposed Phil hastily, winking at his brother and preventing the angry retort he saw Ted was about to make. “I suppose you have been a sailor for a number of years?”
“Uhuh! I’ve been running on ore boats for four seasons,” returned the cookee, mollified by the flattering allusion to his service in the galley as being a sailor.
“When did we leave the dock?” asked Ted, proffering a box of candy.
“Two o’clock. And say, you’se missed a circus,” he added, all aversion to the “young dudes,” as he had dubbed the boys, banished by the candy to which he helped himself liberally.
“What was it?” chorused Phil and Ted.
“You heard the skipper tell Adams there was to be no shore leave? Well, the wheelsman of the first watch sneaked ashore last evening and went up town. When he came back, some strikers caught him on the sand hill and, say, they certainly gave it to him good and plenty. If some of our men aboard hadn’t heard his yells, they would have pounded him to a jelly. But just wait until you see him.”
“Did Captain Perkins bring back the new oiler?” asked Ted.
“Sure.”
“Have any trouble?”
“Not him. Say, he could walk through a crowd of all the strikers put together and there wouldn’t one lay a hand to him.”