Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/290

 "What 's the matter with buyin' her first," said Redney McWilliams, already elected First Mate, his utterance somewhat choked by an especially large and succulent peach, "and then givin' her away to old Sanderson, or somebody, and capturin' her back?"

The extremely aged gentleman to be thus honored, however, was so sickly and decrepit that it was a matter of history that his daughter cut up his meat for him; and the suggestion was discarded as unworthy able-bodied pirates.

"Well, there 's one thing," said Willie Steiner, through his pocket handkerchief; "I 'm sick o' this here cave. There 's nothin' funny about havin' a cold in the head all the time!"

"You were crazy enough to git her built!" scoffed the Captain.

"Well, but I 'd like to know where the fun is sleepin' in a cave when you 've got to have pains in your joints all the time!"

"And I don't see much use in a place that chokes you up with smoke every time you make a fire!" objected Piggie Brennan.

"And you 're not feelin' scart about bein' raided all the time, at sea—I mean out on