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Updated: June 4, 2025
Nor was he far behind, getting to land almost at the same moment that the wherry's keel grated on the beach; when, after shaking himself decorously as he had been taught, so as to avoid wetting his friends by his excessive moisture, Rover barked and pranced round Hellyer and the hamper, and then round Bob and Nellie, as if to say in his dog language "There, my dear young master and mistress, I have discharged my trust faithfully," scurrying off then to the higher part of the shore, where Mrs Gilmour and the Captain were standing, to tell them the same tale, with a loud "Bow wow!"
Accordingly, he stopped on board the steamer till Hellyer, the hamper's custodian, left her; when after seeing him and Dick embarked along with the hamper, the retriever jumped over the side of the stranded vessel and swam ashore in company with the boat containing his friends, apparently mistrusting the frail craft, and preferring to rely upon his own powers in the water.
But, in spite of her smallness of size, she appeared to have the making of a good sea boat in her, and gained many admirers amongst the Southsea watermen as they surveyed her at her new moorings; the little craft being anchored off the coastguard-station and placed now under the charge of Hellyer, when the Captain was not immediately looking after her himself.
After dinner the other boys were dismissed, but Tom and I remained still standing there; Dr Hellyer the while seated in his armchair watching us grimly as if taking pleasure in our sufferings, and without uttering a word to either of us.
"Any your side, Hellyer?" Hellyer and Dick both looked about the table, seeking in vain for the required article. "I can't see none, sit," said the ex-coxswain deprecatingly, giving up the quest after a bit in despair. He seemed, from the way in which he spoke, as if he thought it was his fault that the bread was missing. "There ain't any this side, sir." Dick's search too was equally fruitless.
Nor was Dick far behind, although perhaps not quite so plucky in venturing beyond his depth, now that he had no especial motive as on that memorable evening already alluded to by Hellyer the coastguardsman, for running the risk; while, as for Rover, he fairly revelled in the water, paddling round and round Bob and Dick, thereby executing a series of concentric circles never dreamt of by the Egyptian mathematician whose problems have been the torment of the boys of all ages.
Nerving myself up to the inevitable, I stretched out my right palm; and "whish" with the sound that a flail makes when wielded by an experienced thresher Dr Hellyer came down, right across my fingers, with a tingling blow from a broad flat ruler, which he must have kept concealed behind his back, as I had not seen it before. He seemed to throw all his strength into the stroke.
This was a discovery with a vengeance; and, as might have been expected, all the boys, as if with one accord, shouted with laughter. Dr Hellyer was speechless with indignation.
I don't know by what sudden spasm of memory, but at that very instant my thoughts flew back to my boyish days at Beachampton, and my attempt to blow up Dr Hellyer and the whole school with gunpowder on that memorable November day, as I have narrated.
On breakfast being cleared away, the "refectory," by the simple process of removing the dirty table-cloth from the long table occupying the centre of the apartment, was converted into a school-room, Dr Hellyer coming in immediately after a third gong had rung for a short interval, and taking the armchair at the head that seat of honour which had been temporarily filled by "the Cobbler" during our meal being vacated by Monsieur Phelan with much celerity as soon as the Doctor's expansive countenance was seen beaming on us through the doorway, "like the sun in a fog," as Tom whispered to me.
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