“Why, do you see, Mr Spellman, I’m tough—very tough!” he answered, with a hoarse laugh. “I doubt if even the head cook of the monarch of the cannibal islands—King Hoki Poki—could ever make me tender. So you see I’ve held out through them all; and there’s one thing I may say, trying as they may have been, they have never taken away my appetite. Now, young gentlemen, you’ve had a good long yarn, and my throat feels like a dust-hole with talking, so I must knock off.”
“But you’ll tell us the end of your adventures some day, Mr Johnson; won’t you now?” said Gogles, imploringly.
“I’ll continue them, perhaps, young gentleman,” answered the boatswain, laughing. “But let me tell you it will take a mighty long time before I ever get to the end of them. They’re inexhaustible—something like the mint, young gentlemen, where the King has his guineas struck which he pays to us seamen for fighting for him. We should be in a bad way if his shiners were to come to an end; and one thing I may promise you, as long as I’ve got a brain to think and a tongue to wag, I shall be able to continue my wonderful and veracious history.”
Gogles and Spellman, and even Grey, looked puzzled. I had long suspected that the origin of Mr Johnson’s history was derived from a source considerably removed from fact; and from the peculiar way in which he screwed up his mouth, and the merry twinkle of his one eye—for the other he shut with the comic twist of his nose—I now had not the slightest doubt of the matter. I cannot say that his narratives were exactly instructive, but they were at all events highly amusing to us youngsters. The watch being just then called, an interruption was put to his narrative. Toby Bluff, and some of the other boys, who had been listening outside, were scuttling along the deck, spluttering out their laughter, while the young gentlemen whose watch it was hurried on deck, and the rest retired to the berth. We left Mr Johnson chuckling complacently at his own conceits.
I went to the berth, now magnificently lighted by two purser’s dips, which stood on the table, dropping fatness, in company with a bread-barge of biscuit, some tumblers, earthenware and tin mugs, a bottle of rum and a can of water, and surrounded by most of the members of the mess not on duty. Gogles followed me, and took his seat. The can of water and the biscuit was shoved over to him. He eyed the black bottle wistfully.
“No, no; that isn’t good stuff for babies,” said Perigal, shaking his head; “if we had some milk you should have it, Gogles.”
“I wish we had; why don’t we keep some cows on board?” whispered Gogles.
“What would you feed them on?” asked Grey.
“Grass and hay, when we could get them, of course,” answered Gogles, sagaciously.
“Not at all,” remarked Bobus. “Carpenters’ shavings are the things. On board a ship to which I belonged, we had two goats and a cow to feed our captain’s baby, and whenever we ran short of hay or grass, what do you think the captain did? Cut their throats and eat them? No, not he. Why, he was a very ingenious man, and so he had some pairs of green spectacles made, which he used to clap over their eyes, and then when the shavings were chopped up fine, they used to eat them greedily, believing they were grass. He first gave them all the old straw hats he could collect, but that was an expensive way of feeding them.”