Page:The land of enchantment (1907, Cassell).djvu/113



old sailor was quieter than usual, apparently lost in reveries of the past, as he pulled at the familiar black pipe. Master Charlie fidgeted and wriggled, almost afraid to speak, yet longing to wheedle another story out of his companion. At length he ventured to remark, “I’m going back to school next. week, Ben.”

The sailor roused himself. “Are you indeed, Master Charles? It’s a fine thing to be a scholar. I never was put to books when I was a young nipper.”

Charlie rummaged in his pocket and produced a screw of paper, which he tendered to his friend. “That’s tobacco, Ben, which I thought perhaps you'd accept; and it’s very kind of you, I’m sure, to have told me all those jolly stories. You see, it’s ever so much nicer than reading stories in books, because often they’re not true, you know; and you’ve had such very wonderful adventures, haven’t you, Ben?”

“Well, for the matter of that, Master Charles, I'll not deny but what I’ve knocked about more than most, and what I says that I'll stand by. I thank you kindly, Master Charles, for remembering of yours truly. Talking of tobacco,” added the old sailor meditatively, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and proceeded to fill it with his new acquisition, “it’s a co-in-ci-dence that I was just a-thinking of a curious experience I had when I was serving aboard her Majesty’s gunboat Ring-tailed Roarer, off the west coast of Africa. But there! I daresay you'd like to hear one more yarn, and so I don’t know as I can do better than tell it you; wherefore, if you’re so minded, we'll just clap on all sail, and begin before your ma gives you a hail for dinner.”

“Oh, thank you, Ben! Please do.”

“Well, we were a-cruising up the Crocodile River, if my memory don’t deceive me, Master Charles, and me and the skipper was forrud, a-resting from our labours and the fearful heat of them regions, and without a thought of guile we was a-smoking of our pipes together, sociable-like, when what should come along but an old hippopotamus. It paddled up just to leeward with its snout in the air, sniffing and grunting occasionally in a contented sort of way as our smoke floated in its direction. I was a-watching of it curious-like, and wondering what its little game might be, when suddenly a thought struck me. I got up quietly, leaned over the gun’le, and taking the pipe, which I'd