Then Little Cawthorne rose and squared valiantly up to him.
"What," inquired the little man indignantly, "are you trying to do?
Pick a fight ?" St.George looked at him in surprise.
"Because if you are," continued little Cawthorne without preamble, "we're three to one.

And three of us are going to Yaque.

We'll put you ashore if you say so." St.George smiled at him gratefully.
"No--Bennietod ?" inquired Little Cawthorne.
Bennietod, pale and manifestly weak, grinned cheerfully and fumbled in sudden abashment at an amazing checked Ascot which he had derived from unknown sources.
"Bes' t'ing t'ever I met up wid," he assented, "ef de deck'd lay down levil.

I'm de sonny of a sea-horse if it ain't." "Amory ?" demanded the little man.
Amory looked along his pipe and took it briefly from his lips and shook his head.
"Don't say these things," he pleaded in his pleasant drawl, "or I'll swear something horrid." St.George merely held his pipe by the bowl and nodded a little, but the hearts of all of them glowed.
After dinner they sat long on deck.

Rollo, at his master's invitation, joined them with a mandolin, which he had been discovered to play considerably better than any one else on board.
Rollo sat bolt upright in a reclining chair to prove that he did not forget his station and strummed softly, and acknowledged approval with: "Yes, sir.