as large as ours, with a cover to 'em like
a piece of solid door-mat."

"That's the outer husk, Ned."

"Oh, is it, sir? I thought it was something. But you ain't tasted
one?"

"No."

"Well, sir, it's hard work to cut them at home with a knife, they're
that hard; as for these here they're too soft to cut with a spoon. Have
one, sir?"

"Oh no, I'm not disposed to eat nuts," said Jack, laughing.

"But you don't eat 'em here, sir; it's more drinking of 'em. Let me get
you one, sir."

"Very well: I do feel as if I could drink something."

"Then these are the very thing, sir," said the man, and he hurried off,
Jack lying back watching him till he reached the knot of sailors
enjoying the shade.

Then as Jack watched quite out of hearing, a kind of pantomime began, in
which the sailors seemed to be laughing, and Ned gesticulating, and
holding his hand first to one and then another, slapping his knee
afterward, and seeming to go on in the most absurd manner; but the next
minute Jack began to grasp dimly what it all meant, and that the sailors
were daring their man to do something, and telling him it could not be
done.

There it all was: directly after Ned slipped off his straps and belt,
pulled off his jacket, and then rapidly got rid of his boots.

Jack did not hear him say, "Now, my lads, I'll show you," but he seemed
to say it, after shading his eyes and staring upward for a few moments
before spitting in his hands, taking a run and a jump, and beginning to
hug and climb one of the cocoa-nut trees, while the sailors all sprang
up to stand clapping their hands, and evidently bantering him or urging
him on.

This brought Jack into a sitting position, and the next minute he had
out his glass, and was watching with the actor apparently close at hand,
drawing himself up a few inches at a time, as one would mount a
scaffold-pole, and his wrinkled forehead, compressed lips, and
determined eyes so plain that Jack could have fancied that he heard him
breathe.

"I wonder whether he'll do it," said the lad softly. "He is just one of
those obstinate fellows who, if they make up their minds to do a thing,
manage it somehow."

And feeling as deeply interested as the man himself, Jack felt ready to
run across to the cocoa-nut grove and shout encouragement.

"Look so precious undignified if I did. But how strange it seems!
There was he only the other day in his quiet livery and white tie
valeting us, and waiting