p and down like a rooster flails the air with its wings.

"A fat man's race three times around the ship!" a youth yelled, spying
Slim's activities.

"Hurrah!" cried the crowd. "Get them started."

The jumpers, the wrestlers, and the boxers immediately suspended their
respective contests to enjoy the innovation.

Slim was trying to back away, protesting that he "couldn't run for a
cent," when a familiar, smiling countenance intruded itself in the
circle of good-natured faces with the suggestion: "Well, how about a
plum pudding, then?"

Slim and Jerry at once recognized him as the youth who had similarly
suggested a plum pudding, also sausage, at a most inopportune time.

"Have you got one?" Slim demanded, his spirit aroused.

"Sure have," announced the other, "and I'll make it the stake."

Another shout went up as a second group pushed before Slim another youth
who, so far as size, shape and avoirdupois was concerned, might have
been his twin brother. They looked at each other and both burst into a
hearty laugh.

"Hello, Skinny," said the stranger.

"Howdy, Delicate?" Slim came back at him, quick as a flash. "Want to
race?"

"Don't particularly want to race," responded the other lad, "but I'm
awfully fond of plum pudding."

"And sausage?"

"Is there going to be a sausage in it, too?" asked the stranger,
evidencing increasing interest.

"Only yourself," Slim announced, laughing and jumping back quickly to
avoid any belligerency his joke might inspire in the other.

But he took the joke as good-naturedly as he did the howls of delight
from the crowd, and the two peeled off their coats and discarded their
hats as a couple of youths marked off the starting and finishing line,
while others "cleared the deck for action."

"This will be the tape," said a tall lean fellow, as he tied one end of
a string to the rail, at a point just above the starting line. "After
you have passed here the second time we'll stretch this out, and the
first one to touch it will be the winner."

"Right," said the fat boys together, leaning over in true sprinter
fashion so far as their stomachs would permit them to stoop.

One of the one-hundred-and-eighty-pound wrestlers winked to his comrades
and hurried down into the lower part of the ship on some mysterious
errand.

"One, two, three--Go!" shouted the self-constituted referee.

And Slim and Delicate went! True, neither of them got what sportsmen
would call "a flying start,