“There is something peculiar about that boy,” said Miss Blake. “Sometimes I think his mind is not quite right. You know what a mania he seems to have for fire-works, Aunt. We were not a week out before he was found to have matches and fire-crackers concealed in the forecastle. Then one afternoon not long ago he was discovered in the lazarette, although no one had sent him there.” “That’s so, miss; and the captain thought Dick might have been fooling with the signal-lights and rockets. I hardly think that, though. Most likely he was after the eatables.” “You can see, Laura, what sort of sailors the future generation of captains will have to contend with. Do you suppose such things ever happened on my husband’s ship? Fresh and salt water mixed together, matches and fire-works in the fo’k’sl, rockets and signals in the lazarette? Why, it is awful to think of!” And the widow shook her head, as she reflected on this extraordinary state of affairs. “That boy in the second mate’s watch is worth a dozen of this one of mine,” Bohlman observed. “Freeman predicted he would be the day we divided up the watches, and he was about right. Don’t tell him I think so, though.” The second mate had just come on deck, and Miss Blake said mischievously: “I shall tell Mr. Freeman what you said unless you promise to rig up a bo’s’un’s chair this afternoon, and hoist me up one of the masts.” “I’ll do it, miss, if you say so,” replied Bohlman, “though you got scared the other time before you were a quarter of the way up.” “Laura, I will not allow such a thing again. What would you think if I were to go aloft and haul over a buntline?” “I should laugh, Aunt; I know I should,” and Miss Laura did laugh aloud, while the mate turned away to avoid showing his merriment at the comical idea of the widow overhauling buntlines. “But really, Aunt, there is no danger in it, and Mrs. Brassey, in ‘Around the World in the Yacht _Sunbeam_,’ speaks of being drawn clear up to the mast-head in a bo’s’un’s chair. It is said, also, that Bernhardt climbed the rigging of a steamer one day when on her way to Australia.” “Genius is always eccentric, my dear, and may do anything with impunity. But there—dinner is served. Let us go.”