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Updated: July 2, 2025
"It's long past Eight Bells, and old Bitpin, who has taken Joe Jellaby's watch and is looking after the men scrubbing decks, has been asking for you. He's in a fine temper this morning, Master John Vernon, I can tell you; so, you'd better look sharp, my lad, or you'll `catch Tommy' when he sees you." "Oh, bother!"
Somebody told me you were goin' round the world." He scrutinised the menu through his eyeglass. "Clear soup! . . . Read Jellaby's speech? Amusing the way he squashes all those fellows. Best man in the House, he really is." Shelton paused in the assimilation of asparagus; he, too, had been in the habit of admiring Jellaby, but now he wondered why.
This expression amused me very much, for I had never heard previously of a horse indulging in that species of diet; so, I went up on the quarter-deck to take my watch with a broad smile on my face, which attracted Mr Jellaby's notice at once, as he had a keen relish for a joke. "Hullo, youngster, you're grinning like a Cheshire cat eating green cheese!" he exclaimed.
Naturally everybody in the gunroom was full of the accident, the fellows all thinking more of poor Dick Popplethorne when dead, for the moment at least, than they had ever done while he was living; and I, myself, could not help remembering the strange coincidence of his laughing over Mr Jellaby's yarn about the marine as we were sailing down Channel only a few days before and being especially merry over the young sentry's mistake in calling out "Dead boy" when the bell struck.
"All right," said Commander Nesbitt, when I reached the poop and repeated Mr Jellaby's message, the import of which he already knew from the stoppage of all movement below, and the report of the boatswain from the forecastle that the anchor was "a short stay apeak"; when, advancing to the rail, he called out in a louder key, "Bosun's mate, pipe the hands to breakfast!"
Notwithstanding all adverse comments, however, Mr Jellaby's news of the forthcoming ball proved true, for I heard it confirmed at the captain's table the same evening.
With her eyes on the ground, she put her hand on his arm. "They'll let me come and see you, Jim?" she said, trembling. "Yes; you can find out the rules," he said shortly. "Don't let them children cry. They want their breakfast to warm them. There's plenty of coal. I brought a sack home from Jellaby's last night myself. Good-bye." "Now, march," said the inspector, sternly, pushing the wife back.
Mr Jellaby's face was as pale as that of the man we had rescued. So was the coxswain's; and both seemed to start on seeing me as if I had been a ghost. "Good heavens, my boy!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "How did you get here?" "The doctor sent me, sir," I answered glibly. "He was getting anxious about you and thought something had happened."
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