resolutely toward the end of the pier, with the half-eaten sandwich almost forgotten in his hand. 21

21

After perhaps five minutes had passed, he returned, looking disappointed, but not disheartened, and seating himself by the side of the owner of the two dinner-pails, resumed operations upon the sandwich.

"See the captain?"

"Yep."

"Didn't want a boy, eh?"

"Guess not; he said he'd give me two minutes to get out of the cabin, an' I thought perhaps I'd better go."

"Quite natural, lad, quite natural; I'd done the same thing myself. There couldn't have been any very great harm worked, though, in askin' the question."

"It stirred him up considerable; but I guess he'll get over it without any very bad spell," Teddy said, grimly, and after a brief pause, added, reflectively, "It seems as though some men hated boys; I've seen them as would take a good deal of trouble to kick a feller if he stood the least little bit in the way, an' I never could understand it."

"Perhaps there's more'n you in the same box; a brute's a brute whether he be old or young, an' age always makes 'em worse. It's a pity, though, that you didn't strike one of the right kind, because if you're set on gettin' down where the fightin' is goin' on, this 'ere steamer would have been the safest way."

"Do you know when she's likely to leave?" Teddy asked, after a long pause, during which he had been gazing intently at the gilt letters, Merrimac, on the vessel's rail.

"Some time to-night, I reckon. We've been workin' night an' day at the loadin', an' it's said that she'll leave 22 the dock within an hour after the last scoopful has been put aboard."

22

"How long will it take her to get there?"

"I can't say, lad, seein's I don't rightly know where she's bound; but it shouldn't be a long voyage at the worst, for such as her."

Again Teddy gazed at the gilt letters on the rail, as if in them he saw something strange or wonderful, and when the owner of the dinner-pails 

 Prev. P 9/55 next