ish'd
pull, and in about a brace o' shakes we should have your upper timbers,
as the doctor's been taking so much trouble to mend, all knocked to
pieces again. Now then, my lad, what have you got to say to that?"

Carey had nothing to say to it, so he lay back with his face puckered
up, staring straight before him.

The old sailor used the auger as a hammer and tapped the end of one of
the casks so that it sounded loudly.

"Now then, my lad," he cried, sharply, "aren't that true?"

"I suppose it is, Bob," said Carey, rather dolefully.

"That's right, my lad. You're getting right, and I want to see you
quite right, and then you shall have a line half a mile long, if you
like."

Carey was silent, and after giving him a nod the old sailor turned
deliberately to his work, grunting slowly and laboriously over boring at
the hole, and resting from time to time, while as the boy watched him a
thought flashed into his head and gradually grew brighter and brighter
till he could contain himself no longer, for the old sailor's actions
seemed to be so contrary to all that the boy knew, and he felt that he
had got hold of a clue.

"Look here, Bob," he said, "suppose--"

"Yes, sir," said the old sailor, for the boy stopped, and he was glad of
the opportunity for resting. "I am supposing, sir; go on."

"I was going to say, suppose we knew that the _Chusan_ was breaking up
under our feet; how long would it take you to finish that raft?"

"But she aren't a-breaking up under our feet, sir. You might take the
old _Susan_ on lease for one-and-twenty year, and she'd be all solid at
the end."

"But suppose she was going down, Bob."

"But she couldn't be going down, my lad," argued the old sailor; "she's
got miles o' solid coral rock underneath her."

"Never mind what she has underneath her. I say, suppose she was sinking
under our feet; how long would it take you to finish the raft so that we
could get ashore?"

"Well, 'bout five minutes," said the old fellow, with a grim smile.

"There, I knew it!" cried Carey, excitedly. "I knew it; and you're
going on day after day regularly playing with the job for some reason of
your own."

"Nay, nay, nay," cried the old fellow, picking up a nail, seizing a
hammer, and driving away loudly.

"It isn't because you're lazy."

"Oh, I dunno, sir; there's no skipper now, and everything's to one's
hand. I don't see why one should work too hard."

"That's all gammon, Bob," said Ca