it for this that I left San Mateo?
Rento is a pig, let him do the pig things. I go to my bed."

He made a motion to go, but the Skipper reached out a long arm, and the
next moment the bold youth was dangling over the side of the vessel,
clutching at the air, and crying aloud to all the saints in the
calendar.

"Shall I let go?" asked the Skipper, in his quiet tone.

"Ah! no, distinguished Patron!" cried Franci. "Let me not go! This water
is abominable. Release me, and I will get the lemonade. It is my wish
that you may both be drowned in it, but I will get it,--oh, yes,
assuredly!"

He was set down, and vanished into the cabin; the Skipper, as if this
were the most ordinary occurrence in the world, led the way to the
after-rail, and seated himself, motioning to John to take a place beside
him.

"What is the matter with him?" asked the boy, looking after Franci.

"I think him slightly a fool," was the reply, as the Skipper puffed
leisurely at his cigar. "His parents, worthy people, desired him to be a
sailor, but that he can never be. The best sailor is one born for that,
and for no other thing; also, a sailor can be made, though not of so
fine quality; but of Franci, no. I return him after this voyage, with
compliments, and he sails no more in the 'Nautilus.' And you, Colorado?
How is it with you? You love not at all a vessel, I think?"

There certainly could be no doubt this time that the Skipper was making
fun; his face was alive with it, and John could have laughed outright
for pleasure.

"I don't believe you are a Malay, one bit!" said the child. "I'm not
sure that you are a pirate at all, but I know you aren't a Malay."

"Why that, my son?" asked the Skipper, waving the smoke aside, that he
might see the child's face the clearer. "Why do you think that? I am not
dark enough for a Malay, is it that?"

"No, not that," John admitted. "But--well, you have no creese, and you
are not wild, nor--nor fierce, nor cruel."

"But I have the creese!" the Skipper protested. "The creese, would you
see it? It is in the cabin, behind the door, with other arms of piracy.
Still, Colorado, it is of a fact that I was not born in Polynesia, no.
As to the fierceness and the cruelty, we shall see, my son, we shall
see. If I kept you here on the 'Nautilus' always, took you with me away,
suffered you no more to live with your gentle Sir Scraper, that would be
cruelty, do you think it? That would be a fierce pirate, and a cruel