"Where can the boy be, though ?" They were just about instituting an organised search through the ship, both in great anxiety; when, who should crawl up from below but the missing young gentleman! Rover's look of dejection on being left behind at home in the morning was nothing to that of his young master now; the latter appearing, from his blackened face and rumpled collar, not to speak of his soiled suit of flannels, so beautifully white and clean the moment before, to have "been in the wars" with a vengeance! "Why, what have you been doing with yourself ?" exclaimed the Captain, in blank dismay.

"Where have you been ?" Albeit dilapidated in his general exterior, Bob had not lost his voice; his powers of speech being happily still unimpaired.
"I'm all right," he answered with an attempt at a grin.

"I'm all right!" "But where have you been ?" repeated the Captain, whom this off-hand statement did not quite satisfy.

"Where have you been ?" "Oh, I got blown up," explained Bob.

"When the gun fired I felt an awful pain in my ears, as if somebody was running a red-hot needle through them going right down to my boots!" "You must have long ears, youngster," remarked the young lieutenant slily here.