“By Jupiter, what a wigging I shall get,” whispered Dicky, in a terrible funk. “I say, D’Arcy, my boy, don’t ’peach, though.”
I cocked my eye, and, pointing to the masthead,—“Six hours a day for the next week, eh!—pleasant, Dicky,” I answered.
Master Dicky dared not show his face, lest his consciousness of guilt might betray itself; for, though unable to resist doing a piece of mischief when the temptation came in his way, he had not got the brazen front of a hardened sinner. I also, anxious as I was to learn the result of the trial, was afraid of showing too great an interest in it, lest suspicion should fall on me, and therefore walked the quarter-deck at a respectful distance, picking up what information I could on the way.
“What is this you have to complain of, Mr Trundle?” asked the first-lieutenant, as he stood at the capstern-head, with the enraged boatswain before him.
“Why, sir, as I was a-cleaning myself just now in my cabin, a-thinking no harm of nobody, Mr Ichabod Chissel, the carpenter of this here ship, sir, and my brother officer, thinks fit to heave this here rib-bone right across the steerage against my nose and my glass, and breaks both on ’em. If that ain’t enough to aggrawate and perwoke and—and—and—(he stopped for a word) flabbergast any one, I don’t know what is, sir, you’ll allow.”
“Very much so, I grant,” observed Mr Du Pre, taking the bone between his fingers and holding it behind his back. “Send Mr Chissel here.”
The carpenter soon made his appearance.
“Pray, Mr Chissel, what part of the meat had you for your dinner, to-day?” asked Mr Du Pre.
“The tail, sir,” said the carpenter.
“What became of the bone after dinner?” asked the first-lieutenant.