"Beg pardon, sir; I forgot myself, sir. I means the Captain, sir. Wants you in his cabin, he does."
The Sub, with a glare which froze poor Plunky Bill, stalked aft.
Some half-hour later, the half-deck sentry put his head into the gun-room: "The Sub-lootenant wants Mr. Orphan—in his cabin."
That young gentleman had wagered that he could drink a bottle of soda water more quickly than Bubbles could, and happened to be employed in the process of deciding this. The first trial had resulted in a dead heat, but the second had ended rather disastrously for both; and though the others patted him on the back with any heavy, unsuitable article they could find, he had not quite recovered himself when he burst into the Sub's cabin.
The Sub was excited again. When he was excited his eyes burnt like coals and his mouth was a slit, tightly shut—shut like a rat-trap.
"Orphan! my jumping Orphan! we've got it—you and I and your rotten old picket-boat. Guess what we've got to do, my 'JJ.'! It's simply too grand!"
He lighted his pipe. The cabin was already so full of smoke that the Orphan was coughing.
"What is it?" he gasped—the soda water inside him still busy.
"Have a cigarette?" the Sub said, shoving a box towards him.
"I'm not eighteen yet!" the Orphan said, thinking that the Sub perhaps had forgotten and might beat him afterwards.