Page:Barbour--Captain Chub.djvu/345

Rh “I give it up,” answered Dick.

“So do I,” said Roy and Harry in unison.

“And you, Chub?”

“Well, of course I could get it in time, but as the others are impatient, I won’t stand in their way, sir.”

“Very kind of you, sir,” said the doctor. “It’s a ship.”

Every one said “Oh!”—every one save Chub.

“I should have guessed that next,” he remarked easily.

“Oh, what a fib, Chub!” said Harry. “You’d never have guessed it, and you know it.”

“I don’t quite see what you mean about ‘nails and no toes,’” said Dick.

“Don’t you? Why, a ship’s put together with nails, Dick.”

“Sure,” murmured Dick, while the rest laughed. “And—and how about the rest of it, sir?”

“A sheet is a rope that hoists a sail, as you doubtless know,” explained the doctor. “As for the fingers and rings, why, the masts are the fingers, and the rings are the wooden rings that the sails are attached to. There you are, sir.”

“To think of you making that up yourself!”