ieked Dot, but her cry was smothered by the noise made by the
sailor's fist, as he banged it down on the table.

"Avast!" he roared fiercely. "You put down that there jack-knife.
Didn't the Cap'n say as you wasn't to tease your sister?"

"Oh, yes!" cried the boy; "I forgot. It was only my fun."

"Your fun!" cried the sailor, looking his ugliest. "Don't you cry, my
pretty. If ever he teases you I'll mut'ny, and never help him to rig a
boat agen. And look here: if he don't say he's sorry, I won't do this
here."

"But I am sorry," cried the boy. "Oh, I say, Dot, don't be a little
silly. I tell you it was only my fun."

"Your fun!" growled "Jack," passing his left arm round Dot, and looking
very savage, as he held up a great rough finger at the offender, and
shook his head at him warningly. "Now look-ye here. There was some
boys once as stood round chuckin' stones at some frogs in a pond,
and----"

"Yes, I know," cried the Skipper hastily, "and the frogs said--"

"Avast!" roared the sailor--"nay, I don't mean they said 'Avast,'
that's what I says. Don't you int'rup' older folks, as is talking to
you for your good. Mebbe you do know what the frogs said, but it won't
hurt you to hear it agen. The frogs said--I mean croaked out--'Avast!'"

"Why! you told us the frogs didn't say 'Avast,'" cried the boy.

"Did I? Ay! so I did. It wasn't 'Avast'; it were 'Belay there! Don't do
that,' they says. And then the boys said, just as you did, 'It was only
my fun.' And then the frogs says: 'Ha!' they says, 'what's fun to you
means stones come aboard and sinkin' us, and sendin' on us to the
bottom.'"

"That they didn't!" cried the boy archly.

"Well, I don't say it was them werry words, but what they says meant
it, and here you will come bringing your fun, as you calls it, on deck,
and hurtin' your pretty little sister; and you calls yourself a man."

"I don't," said the boy. "I said I'd try _and act like a man_."

"Then why don't yer hack like a man?" cried the sailor. "You're
a-gettin' on: some o' these days you'll be skipper of a big craft o'
your own, and you promised I should be your bo'sun; and here you goes
and hacks like that. Why! big as I am, I wouldn't go an' hurt a little
thing like this, for a golden king's crown.--Would I, my pretty?"

"No, 'Jack,'" said Dot seriously; "I'm sure you wouldn't. And it's very
cruel of Bob."

"That's right, my dear; so it is; and I just tell him if he don't stick
to his word lik