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But I'll be bound to say, sir," cried the old man, chuckling till the tears stood in his eyes, "some on 'em'll be saying among theirselves that old Bob Bostock was as good a mate as ever stepped the deck." "I hope so too," said the doctor, smiling; "people are very fond of finding out a man's good qualities when he's dead."
You'd better not show your goods to the tradesman of this place; any one of 'em'll go into any warehouse and sniff and peck, and peck, and then clear out. It'd be all right if there were no goods, but what do you expect a man to trade in? I've got one apothecary shop, one dry goods, the third a grocery. No use, none of them pays.
"It just occurred to me in time," said Wallie, complacently. "You don't s'pose any of 'em'll slip out and run back?" "No, I think we're all right if nothing more happens between here and the ranch." After a time Pinkey remarked: "That lady with the bad heart she must 'a' been scairt. I'll bet her lips were purple as a plum, don't you?"
The guns fired steadily one after the other in a long rolling roar. The men laughed at each shot. "They couldn't hit the sea," they said derisively. "The navy gunners are no use at all." "No," said Marah, "they're not. But if they keep their course another half-minute they'll be on the sunk reef, and a lot of 'em'll be drowned. I wonder will the old Laocoon take a hint."
After this adventure, Uncle Peter would caution him of an evening: "Now, Billy, don't stay out late. If you ain't been gone through by eleven, just hand what you got on you over to the first man you meet none of 'em'll ask any questions and then pike fur home. The later at night it gets in New York the harder it is fur strangers to stay alive.
"I doubt if any of 'em'll face it," said the First Lieutenant hopefully, when The Day arrived. "There's a nasty lop on, and the glass is tumbling down as if the bottom had dropped out. It's going to blow a hurricane before midnight. Anyhow, they'll all be sick coming off." The Torpedo Lieutenant was descending the ladder to the picket-boat. "Bunje and I are going in to look after them.
A few minutes later the voice of the old Doane was raised from the darkness: "Whoever ye be over yon," it challenged, "lift up both yore hands. I'm a-goin' ter light a lantern now an' come straight to'rds ye but thar's a rifle-gun ter ther right of ye an' a pistol ter ther left of ye an' ef ye makes a false move both of 'em'll begin shootin'."
"Ay, they do, my boy; but folks don't get all they deserve." "Or I should be punished for letting that boy steal the rope." "Hang the rope!" he said crustily. "I mean, hang the boy or his father, and that's what some of 'em'll come to," he cried grimly, "if they don't mind. They're a bad lot down that court. Lor' a mussy me!
The other fellows all say it can't be done. Not one of 'em'll do it, not even Van Horn. I say it can, and I'm going to do it to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, if I can work out a tool to do it with and make it. And I can do that if idiots like you will get out and keep out." He sat down and was instantly lost again in his effort at invention.
One of 'em sticks his finger in the sand and makes a hole, and another of 'em'll pat the place with his hand, and all the little grains of sand run in and fill it up and settle against one another; and then, right away it's flat on top again, and you can't tell there ever was a hole there. The Realty Company'll go on all right, mamma.
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