eating of a
large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for
three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone
sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.

"Bad luck to them dogs!" exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he
surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was,
I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would."

"It was Dumps as did it, I'll bet you a month's pay," said Peter Grim,
as he sat on the end of the windlass refilling his pipe, which he had
just smoked out.

"Not a bit of it," remarked Amos Parr, who was squatted on the deck
busily engaged in constructing a rope mat, while several of the men sat
round him engaged in mending sails, or stitching canvas slippers,
etcetera. "Not a bit of it, Grim; Dumps is too honest by half to do
sich a thing. 'Twas Poker as did it, I can see by the roll of his eye
below the skin. The blackguard's only shammin' sleep."

On hearing his name mentioned, Poker gently opened his right eye, but
did not move. Dumps, on the contrary, lay as if he heard not the base
aspersion on his character.

"What'll ye bet it was Dumps as did it?" cried Davie Summers, who passed
at the moment with a dish of some sort of edible towards the galley or
cooking-house on deck.

"I'll _bet_ you over the 'ead, I will, if you don't mind your business,"
said Mivins.

"You'd _bet_ter not," retorted Davie with a grin. "It's as much as your
situation's worth to lay a finger on me."

"That's it, youngster, give it 'im," cried several of the men, while the
boy confronted his superior, taking good care, however, to keep the
fore-mast between them.

"What do you mean, you young rascal?" cried Mivins with a frown.

"Mean!" said Davie, "why, I mean that if you touch me I'll resign
office; and if I do that, you'll have to go out, for everyone knows you
can't get on without me."

"I say, Mivins," cried Tom Green, the carpenter's mate, "if you were
asked to say: `Hold on hard to this handspike here, my hearties,' how
would ye go about it?"

"He'd 'it you a pretty 'ard crack hover the 'ead with it, 'e would,"
remarked one of the men, throwing a ball of yarn at Davie, who stood
listening to the conversation with a broad grin.

In stepping back to avoid the blow the lad trod on Dumps's paw, and
instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of
anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook ex