"Haven't you, young shaver?" said he, grinning again and looking down with mock pity at the pumps I wore, which were guiltless of even the smallest tack, being all sewn, as I held up the soles for his inspection. "Then, all I can say is I'm sorry for you! I really didn't think you were deformed--and such a young and promising chap, too!" I got alarmed at this. "Deformed!" I repeated. "What do you mean?" "Why, if you haven't any nails in your boots, or shoes--it doesn't matter which, but we'll say boots for argument's sake," said my tormentor quizzingly--"it follows, naturally and logically, that you have none on your toes! In which case, my poor young friend, you must be suffering from a malformation of the feet; or, in other words, you are deformed, according to Euclid, _quid demonstrandum est_, twiggy vous?" "Oh, yes, I see," said I, feeling rather nettled, I confess, at his thus taking a rise out of me. "You think that funny, I suppose; but, I call it both silly and vulgar!" "`Silly!' `vulgar!' You very small fragment of impudence," rejoined Larkyns, highly delighted at being thus successful in "pulling my leg" and making me angry, "I'll have you keel-hauled for speaking so disrespectfully to your superior officer, sir. Beg my pardon instantly, or--" What he would have done, however, in case of my non-compliance with his imperative request remains a mystery to the present day; for, as at that moment, the commander, who had been surveying the maintop from the poop-rail above us, hearing my funny gentleman's voice, which he had raised in speaking to me, called out to him-- "Below there," he cried--"Mr Larkyns!" "Yes, sir," answered my "superior officer" humbly enough, touching his cap and looking up at Commander Nesbitt. "Want me, sir?" "Yes," said the other, "There's something wrong with the bunt of that tops'l, I think. It does not appear to me quite ship-shape somehow or other, Mr Larkyns. Go up to the maintop and see what's the matter with it at once." "Ay, ay, sir," replied my tormentor, springing nimbly into the rigging and shinning up the ratlines almost as soon as the words were out of the commander's mouth, "I'll see, sir." I looked up at the moment, and, catching Commander Nesbitt's eye I'm sure he gave a sort of sly wink, the which impressed on my mind the conviction that he must have overheard our conversation and, wishing to give Master Larkyns some employment for his spare time, had sent him aloft on a wild-goose chase. The topsail was stowed snugly enough, so, my friend the middy's missive was set-off to his chaff at my expense. This conviction was confirmed when the commander immediately afterwards ordered me to go forwards and tell the boatswain to get the fish tackle clear for hoisting in the lower deck guns as soon as they came alongside next morning in the dockyard lighters.