Morgan went an' armed his lead, to
enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but
there wasn't any suet--only tallow, o' course."
"'_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the
Britannic Navy is well guarded_.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft.
Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"
"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this
Antonio thought of our sails."
"He merely says that '_the engines having broken down, an officer
extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.' Oh, yes! he says
that some of them looked like '_bonnets in a needlecase_,' I think."
"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no
sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was
a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven
good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E
must have been drunk!"
"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
the execution."
"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I
told my crew--me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a
torpedo man now--it just showed how you can work your gun under any
discomforts. A shell--twenty six-inch shells--burstin' inboard couldn't
'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had
spilled on our deck.
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