rup him, and give it him well, and
it strikes me as his father'll give him the rope's-end as well, as soon
as he sees him for going back home with such a face as he's got on his
front. My word, you did paint him up. His old man won't hardly know
him."

"Tom!" cried Aleck, excitedly, as these last words impressed him deeply.

"Ay, ay, sir! Tom it is."

"Look at my face," said the lad, looking up sharply from where he had
been leaning over the gunwale scooping up the water in his hand and
bathing the injuries he had received in his encounter. "Look at me. Is
my face much knocked about?"

The sailor shifted the hands which had held rudder and sheet, afterwards
raising that which held the latter and rubbing his mahogany brown nose
with the rope.

"Well, why don't you speak, Tom?" said the lad, pettishly.

"'Cause I was 'specting yer like, my lad--smelling yer over like, so as
to think out what to say."

"Go on, then; only say something."

"So I will, sir, if yer really wants to hear."

"Why, of course I do. Does my face show much?"

"Well, yes, sir," said the sailor, gravely, as he went on rubbing one
side of his nose with the rope. "You've got it pretty tidy."

"Tell me what you can see."

The sailor grunted and hesitated.

"Go on," cried Aleck. "Here, my bottom lip smarts a good deal. It's
cut, isn't it?"

"That's right, sir. Cut it is, but I should say as it'll soon grow up
together again."

Aleck pressed the kerchief to his lip, and winced with pain.

"Arn't loosened no teeth, have yer, sir?"

Aleck shook his head.

"Go on," he said. "What about my nose? It's swollen, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, sir, it is a bit swelled like. Puffy, as yer might say;
but, bless yer 'art, it's nothing to what Big Jem's is. I shouldn't
mind about that a bit now, for it have stopped bleeding. There's
nothing like cold sea water for that, though it do make yer tingle a
bit. I 'member what a lot o' good it used to do when we'd been in
action and the lads had got chopped about in boarding the enemy. The
Frenchies used to be pretty handy with their cutlasses and
boarding-pikes. They used axes too."

"Oh, I don't want to know about that," cried Aleck, pettishly. "There's
a scratch or something on my forehead, isn't there?"

"It's 'most too big and long to call it a scratch, sir. I should call
that a cut."

"Tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated Aleck.

"That'll soon be all right, sir," continued the sailor, c