heerfully.
"Bit o' sticking plaster'll soon set that to rights. What I don't like
is your eyes."

"My eyes?" cried Aleck. "Yes, they do feel stiff when I wink them. Do
they look bad, then?"

The sailor chuckled softly.

"What do you mean by that?" cried the lad, angrily. "Are they swollen
too? I'm sure there's nothing to laugh at in that."

The sailor tried to look very serious, but failed. The laughing
crinkles were smoothed out of his face, but his eyes sparkled and danced
with merriment as he said:

"I didn't mean no harm, Master Aleck, but you wouldn't say what you did
if you could see your eyes. They do look so rum."

"Why? How?" cried Aleck, excitedly.

"Did yer see Benny Wiggs's eyes las' year after he took the bee swarm as
got all of a lump in Huggins's damsel tree?"

"No, of course I didn't," cried Aleck, impatiently.

"Ah, that's a pity, sir, because yourn looks just like his'n did. You
see, they don't look like eyes!"

"Then what do they look like?" cried Aleck.

"Well, sir, I'll tell yer: they looks just like the tops o' bread loaves
going to the oven."

"Like what?"

"I mean like the holes the missuses makes in the dough with their
fingers. Finishes off by giving a poke in the top with a finger, and
that closes up into a crinkly slit with a swelling around."

"Bah!" growled Aleck.

"Well, you would ask me, sir."

"Yes, of course. Something like Big Jem's?"

"Yes, sir; on'y more squeezed in like. Your eyes is allus handsome and
bright like, but they arn't now. But, there, don't you mind that, sir.
They turn nasty colours like for a bit, but, as I says, don't you mind.
Big Jem's face was a reg'lar picter. I don't know what his father'll
say when he sees him."

"And I don't know what uncle will say when he sees me," said Aleck,
despondently.

"Eh? The captain?" cried the sailor, in a startled tone of voice.
"Phe-ew!" he whistled. "I forgot all about him. I say, my lad, he
won't like to see you this how."

"No," said Aleck, dismally.

"Arn't got no aunts or relations as you could go and see for a fortnit,
have you?"

"No, Tom; I have no relatives but Uncle Donne."

"That's a pity, sir. Well, I dunno what you'd better do."

"Face uncle, and tell him the whole truth."

"To be sure, sir. Of course. That's the way you'd better lay your
head--to the wind like. And, look here, sir!"

"I can't look, Tom; my eyes feel closed up, and I can hardly see a bit."

"I