"Instead of
being at the helm of my ship, racing all the other craft down the river,
I'm skulkin' down below here like--like"--
"Like an actress," suggested Tommy.
The skipper eyed him all over. Tommy, unconscious of offence, met his
gaze serenely.
"If," continued the skipper, "at any time you felt like taking too much,
and you stopped with the beer-mug half-way to your lips, and thought of
me sitting in this disgraceful state, what would you do?"
"I dunno," replied Tommy, yawning.
"What would you do?" persisted the skipper, with great expression.
"Laugh, I s'pose," said Tommy, after a moment's thought.
The sound of a well-boxed ear rang through the cabin.
"You're an unnatural, ungrateful little toad," said the skipper
fiercely. "You don't deserve to have a good, kind uncle to look after
you."
"Anybody can have him for me," sobbed the indignant Tommy, as he
tenderly felt his ear. "You look a precious sight more like an aunt than
an uncle."
After firing this shot he vanished in a cloud of blanket, and the
skipper, reluctantly abandoning a hastily-formed resolve of first
flaying him alive and then flinging him overboard, sat down again and
lit his pipe.
Once out of the river he came on deck again, and, ignoring by a great
effort the smiles of the crew and the jibes of the mate, took command.
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