Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/185

 Despite the suspense, this innocent statement aroused a general grin, for nearly every person present, at one time or another, had found the lighthouse keeper fast asleep in his accustomed seat.

"I must have been nappin' fifteen minutes—" he went on.

"Say, Cap'n, how long you think your light's been out?" interrupted a fisherman.

"Sumpin' like two hours as fer as I kin calkerlate, mates, sence I war tied up and heard that scum smash the light."

"Right after dark you fell off?" persisted the questioner.

"Right after dark it war."

"What happened those other two or three hours?" Turner took up the quizzing.

"Maybe it war more'n fifteen minutes I war' sleep. Maybe it war." conceded the Cap'n, "or maybe it war more'n two hours sense the devil lit on me."

Turner and the others, raising no further objection to the misfit in time, allowed the old man to go on.

"As I war sayin', after I had been 'sleep