"Just as the eels do to skinning!" growled the Captain, rubbing his sore shins. "I'd rather be excused the practice, though, on my part."

Bob sn.i.g.g.e.red at this; and, pa.s.sing along a narrow dark pa.s.sage, its obscurity rather increased than diminished by the solitary illuminating power of a single "dip" in a ship's lantern hung up against the side, the lieutenant stopped the Captain from any further grumbling by introducing him into the ward-room, which, being well lit up with little electric lamps, offered a marked contrast to the other parts of the vessel they had traversed.

To the Captain, indeed, it was like pa.s.sing from purgatory to fairyland, as he said; the more so from the fact of his seeing a well-spread table before him, and there being a savoury smell permeating the atmosphere.

So, he took his seat with alacrity, prepared to do ample justice to whatever viands were brought forward.

Bob, who came in a little later, his curiosity being attracted by the sight of the open torpedo-room adjacent, with its stores of Whitehead tubes, gave the witty young surgeon, who was facing the door, an opportunity of cracking a joke at the expense of his s.m.u.tty face, which he had been unable to wash since his tumble amongst the coals.

"Hullo, Pompey!" cried out this worthy, who by the way had been previously chaffed by his brother officers, such is the levity of sailors in imminent peril, about the gun accident not having provided him with any patients. "Hullo, Pompey, you've forgotten your banjo and bones!"

Bob did not see the point of the joke at first, although there was a general t.i.tter round the lower part of the table where the young surgeon was seated; when Master Bob did, however, he blushed pretty red, looking uncommonly sheepish.

But the lieutenant came to his rescue.

"He has left his bones behind advisedly, Phillips," said he to the young surgeon, who was smiling still at his own witticism, "because he knew, if he brought them, you would only carve and saw them about as you served those fossils at the hospital."

This turned the laugh against the other, enabling Bob to sit down in peace and enjoy his luncheon, during which he was much amused at the fun going on amongst the junior officers at their end of the festive board about the splendid chances offered for promotion and "unfortunately missed" by the bursting cannon.

"Just fancy!" observed one of those, speaking in an undertone, so that those of superior rank at the upper end of the table could not hear him.

"Three 'flags,' four 'posts,' half-a-dozen commanders, and two 'first luffs,' all within range of that blessed muzzle that carried away; and not one vacancy on the list!"

"It's positively awful," chimed in another, in cordial agreement with his brother sub, "we may never have such a chance again!"

The Captain subsequently explained to Bob that they meant that had the several admirals and other officers of rank who stood behind the forty- three ton gun been killed or materially injured when it burst, these thoughtless juniors believed they would have "received a step" on the list, or in other words, would have been probably promoted--which Bob thought extremely wicked and reprehensible on their part.

After the explosion, of course, there was no more gun-practice, the _Archimedes_ slowly making her way back to Spithead, and then into harbour; the broken breech of the unfortunate weapon that had come to grief being carefully covered over with a piece of tarpaulin, so that those on board an Austrian frigate lying in the roadstead, which the ironclad had to go by, should know nothing of the burst, at least from pa.s.sing observation. We do not like to show our failures to our friends--only our successes!

The Captain and Bob, naturally, got back all the sooner from the trial trip of the _Archimedes_ being thus cut short, reaching "the Moorings,"

indeed, just as Mrs Gilmour and her guests were going out for a stroll before dinner; when, Rover pranced up to his young master, all affection and oblivious of any "hard feelings" he might have entertained by being left behind in the morning, repeating his magnanimous conduct on a previous occasion!

"By Jove!" cried the Captain jocularly, addressing Bob's father. "That son of yours is bound to turn out something great."

"Really, what's he been doing now?"

"Why," replied the old sailor with his customary chuckle, thumping the pavement with his malacca cane to give greater emphasis to his words, "he was half-drowned almost the first evening he came down here; was wrecked in the poor _Bembridge Belle_ the other afternoon; and now, to complete the category, has been blown up to-day."

"Boys are like cats," said the barrister smiling. "They all seem endowed with the same proverbial number of lives."

"How funny, Bob," observed Nellie here. "Papa says you're like a cat; so, you must be like Snuffles!"

Bob, however, did not appear to see the joke of this; though it afforded his sister much amus.e.m.e.nt, which was increased anon by the Captain asking her a question.

"I say, Miss Nell," he cried out in his jocular way, chuckling the while, "what colour is this celebrated cat of yours, Snuffles?"

"He's black all over, Captain," replied Nellie as distinctly as her giggles would permit. "Only, he has four white paws, just as if he had lamb's-wool socks on, like those mamma makes Bob wear in winter."

"Humph!" snorted out the old sailor, his beady eyes twinkling with fire and his bushy eyebrows moving rapidly up and down. "If you had seen Master Bob when he first emerged from the fore-peak of the _Archimedes_ after his tumble through the fo'c's'le and roll amongst the coal-sacks, you would have thought him, missy, more like Snuffles than ever. The only drawback to the likeness was that Bob had but two paws instead of four, and that they were as black as his face!"

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Nellie, shrieking with laughter. "Do you hear that, mamma?"

"Aye, my dear, I'm not joking," went on the Captain, his face now as grave as a judge. "Do you know he was so black, that they mistook him for one of the Christy minstrels when he came into the ward-room afterwards!"

This finished poor Nell; even Bob, too, joining in the laugh against himself.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

TRAWLING OFF THE NAB.

The same evening, while they were all on the pier, listening to the band, and chatting pleasantly together in the pauses between the music, Mrs Gilmour turned the conversation upon a matter of extreme interest to Master Bob, and one concerning which he had been in much doubt of mind for some time past; although his native diffidence had prevented him from personally broaching the subject in his own right.

Sitting there within hail of the sea, the soft arpeggio of whose faint ripple on the sh.o.r.e seemed to harmonise with the louder instrumentation of the orchestra, which was just then playing a selection from Weber's "Oberon," the talk naturally drifted into a nautical channel; the old sailor dilating, to the delight of his listeners, on the charms of a life afloat and the divine beauty of the ocean, whether in storm or at rest.

"Aye, there's no life like it," said he. "A life on the ocean wave!"

"It sounds nice in poetry," observed the Irish barrister, who although full of sentiment, like most of his countrymen, always tried to hide it under a mask of comedy. "But, I think it must be a very up and down sort of existence. Too uncertain for me, at all events!"

"Oh, Dugald!" remonstrated his wife. "Why, this morning you were rhapsodising over the sea, and wishing you were able to spend your brief life afloat."

"My brief life, indeed!" exclaimed Mr Strong. "It's precious few briefs I get, or it would be more pleasant. I wish more of 'em would come in, my dear, to pay for those children's shoes. They've worn out half-a-dozen pairs apiece, I believe, since they've been down here!"

"Better a shoemaker's bill," said Mrs Gilmour, "than a doctor's, sure, me dear Dugald."

"Aye, by Jove!" put in the Captain with a chuckle. "There's nothing like leather, you know."

"By the way, talking of that, though I don't mean to say it's made like the old Britons' coracles," observed Mrs Gilmour silly, "when is that yacht of yours going to be ready, Captain?"

This unexpected inquiry made the old sailor blush a rosy red, for his face was turned westwards towards the setting sun, and all could see it plainly; albeit, he tried to conceal his perturbation by drawing out his brilliant bandana handkerchief and blowing his nose vigorously--an old trick of his.

"I--I--I'm having her done up," he at length stammered out. "She wanted a lot of repair."

"So I should think," rejoined his persecutor, turning round to the others. "You must know, good people, that I've been hearing of nothing but this yacht for the last two years; and, would you believe it, I've never seen her yet!"

"I a.s.sure you--," began the Captain; but, alas! his enemy, in addition to being a host in herself, had allies of whom he little dreamt; and so he was interrupted ere he could get at a second stammering "I a.s.sure you!"

"Why, you promised, Captain," said Nell mischievously, "the very first time we saw you in the train, to take us out for a 'sail in your yacht'; and I have been longing so much for it ever since. We thought that was what you meant when you said you were going to take us somewhere or do something that 'to-morrow come never' as you called it!"

"You wicked man, to deceive the poor children so!" cried

Mrs Gilmour, shaking her finger at him. "Oh, you bad man!"

But, before he could answer a word, Bob, who had been waiting anxiously for an opening, likewise a.s.sailed him.

"Ah! Don't you remember, Captain, that day when you took d.i.c.k down to the Dockyard to get him entered as a sailor boy on board the _Saint Vincent_, and they wouldn't take him because he was too thin, you said it didn't matter, for you would employ him on board your yacht when the racing season began? Why, d.i.c.k and I have been looking out for a sail ever since. Don't you remember?"

"Now, aren't you ashamed of yourself, sure?" said Mrs Gilmour, following up Bob's flank attack; his father and mother enjoying the discussion immensely, coupled as it was with the old sailor's comical embarra.s.sment. "Tell me, now, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"