"It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up.

Perhaps he had not even seen it.

Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged.

I was holding up my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of itself." He passed his hand over his forehead.

"The thing stirred and jumped off like something alive while I was looking at it." "That made you feel pretty bad," I observed casually.