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Just then, as luck would have it, Larrikins, our old cicerone, came up abreast of where we were standing. "Hi there!" sang out the master-at-arms. "Come and show these boys how to sling their hammocks." "Yes, sir," replied Larrikins, with a scrape and a touch of his cap. "Werry good, sir."
"Cum on, blokes, an' see a bit o' fun," he cried with a mirthless grin that showed he was dangerously excited. The three larrikins caught up with Stinky and the girl as they were crossing into Belmore Park. Stinky was explaining to some sympathizers the events that had led up to the quarrel. "Wot would yous do if a bloke tried to sneak yer moll?" he inquired in an injured tone.
"I can see the `spuds' all right," said I; "but where's the Jonah?" "That be the bone, silly!" With which withering rejoinder, Larrikins left us to enjoy ourselves with the food he contemned; though he probably went away to make a hearty dinner off the same at his own mess on the deck below, where his division "hung out."
We had not escaped scatheless either, for we lost three men in our boat, besides Bartlett the bowman, and had five wounded, the coxswain seriously; while Larrikins had a bullet through the fleshy part of his forearm, and I received a knock on the knee from a friendly Arab which made me limp for more than a month afterwards.
"I doesn't like that yere knifin', though," said Master Larrikins, when Mick had bound up my arm with his handkerchief, taking it off his neck for the purpose; and we had all turned to sneak below out of observation before `quarters' should be sounded and the fellows come tumbling up from dinner, `Ugly' concealing his battered face by dragging down his cap over his eyes, and pulling up his collar as if he had toothache, which no doubt was not very far from the truth.
"I fancies, Tom Bowlin', I hed th' adwantage on yer onst, an' placed yer too, that time I cut yer down in yer hammick aboard the Saint Vincent, hey, old ship?" It was Larrikins. Needless to say how glad I was to meet him again, or what yarns we had to tell each other of what had happened to us respectively since last we met.
Nothing further of any note occurred during the afternoon to mar the harmony or vary the monotony of our `bag and hammock drill, at which we were religiously kept up to the time to leave off work; when we enjoyed again our tea-supper, and skylarked afterwards till it was time to `turn in, which we managed to do now more comfortably as well as expeditiously than on the night before; while, I may add, my dreams happily were not disturbed by any storms and thunder-claps of that imp Larrikins' contrivance.
Larrikins was put by the master-at-arms to `show us the ropes' in getting our supplies from the galley for this supper, as previously; and amused himself considerably at our expense, chaffing some of the new chaps about their not having "smelt such a thing as tea before," so he hinted.
"It strikes me, Larrikins, you'll soon be on short allowance yourself if you don't keep a better hold on your tongue! Let me see these mess-tables all cleared up before I come back from the wardroom, or you'll smell powder before Six Bells, I promise you, and shan't go ashore to-day."
I do not say it in any boasting sense, will you please recollect, for I am sure that no one who knows me would accuse me of being a braggart; but, as I am telling of events that really happened, I must speak the truth, and so to do this I am obliged to say that I was one of the first to spring to Mr Dabchick's side after he boarded the dhow, Larrikins coming next with a mad leap that nearly scrunched my toes off, and then the coxswain of the cutter and the rest of the chaps.
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