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Updated: September 29, 2025
The Skipper himself was at the wheel and, coughing the raw, damp fog out of his throat, he shouted hoarsely to Topper: "Better get our fog-horn goin', mate." "Aye, aye, Skipper. It's in your cabin, ain't it?" "Yes, in the first locker." The mate descended the companion-steps, with a mysterious smile on his face, and his dexter optic closed. The casual observer might have thought that Mr.
'E don't come no s'prises 'ere while I'm master of the Saucy Sally!" After this slight breeze, things quickly settled down again on the old lines between master and mate, and the voyage to Chichester Harbor was entirely uneventful, the barge bringing up at a snug anchorage near Emsworth. The next day Mr. Topper had undressed and gone overboard for a swim.
That's the call to 'head off' some one, and By George! there he is now, coming head on, the hound, and running like the wind!" For of a sudden, through a break in the traffic, a scudding figure had sprung into sight. It was the figure of a man in a gray frock-coat and a shining "topper," a well-groomed, well-set-up man, with a small, turned-up moustache and hair of a peculiar reddish shade.
That topper you got seems to have made you a bit deaf," said the lad, as he crouched close up to his companion's head. "I don't suppose if we spoke loud that any one would understand us; but there's some one outside there, and after a bit I am going to look if he ain't gone."
They gives me a wipin' for it, but there, they can't 'arf do it. And they says if I want my shillin' I can go and get it from that cantin' son of a thief meanin' you, governor what kep' me. Bless you, they did jaw, them two, but I give that 'Orksbury a topper, which I owed 'im one afore." This spirited address on the part of our young friend I need hardly say interested us all deeply.
Jobson nodded delight at her daughters. "He's coming round," she whispered. "He liked that ticket-collector calling him 'sir' yesterday. I noticed it. He's put on everything but the topper. Don't say nothing about it; take it as a matter of course."
He do teach you to-rights, so I let you know, he do." "What else does he teach you besides your letters?" "Oh, about a bloke called Cain as give 'is pal a topper, and " He stopped abruptly, as he noticed the smile I could not restrain, and then added, in his offended tone, "I ain't a-goin' to tell you. 'Tain't no concern of yourn."
The following afternoon, as Bob Topper took his trick at the wheel, he ruminated on the mutability of human affairs in general, and the "contraryness" of skippers in particular. "Won't 'ave no music, won't he? Well, I reckon it's like religion when the missionaries is a shovin' of it into the African niggers they just jolly well got to 'ave it! An' so it'll be with the ole man.
He never was any credit to me, and he never will be. Like as not, if he gets better, he'll give me a topper." "Come along, and hold your tongue, Samson. Do you suppose I can't see through you?" "Yes, I do, sir," said Samson, with a chuckle. "Chap did try to make a hole through me just after we turned soldiers, but it's all grown up again. I say, Master Fred, though, ser'us think Nat is alive?"
I got it too, but I'd a deal rather I'd had his topper and he'd had mine, and that's honest; for though he's a gentleman and I have only been a rough recruity, he's always been a good chap to me, and I never liked him so much as I do now when he's in such trouble. I wonder where poor Miss Minnie is." Phoonk! came from somewhere outside, and there was a rattling as of an iron chain.
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