an
invention of his own, which he spoke diffidently of, would do. So
Green's leg was done up in splints for twenty-four hours, and then
plaistered up. And after a bit the doctor saw so much improvement that
he agreed to say nothing about it, and so Green sailed with the rest.

"How is your _fons ilium_, Green?" he was asked that evening in the
saloon.

"Hush!" he whispered, anxiously; "the colonel will hear you! I am all
right. I'll walk you ten miles through the deepest sand we meet with
for a sovereign."

"Thank you; no amount of sovereigns would tempt me to accept the
responsibility of putting your scarsal bone to so severe a test. But I
am glad it is so much stronger; very glad. I would not have the
regiment miss the aid of your stalwart arm on any consideration. Never
shall I forget the way you delivered that Number 3 cut which caught
Mercer such a hot one the other day, when you were playing singlestick
on the deck. I say, by-the-by, have you had your sword sharpened?"

"Yes!" replied Green, with enthusiasm. "It has a good butcher's-knife
edge upon it; so the corporal said, who ground it for me. It is quite
as sharp as my pocket-knife."

"I am not quite so soft as they take me for," he added, confidentially,
to Strachan presently.

"Of course you are not, my dear fellow," said Tom. "I doubt if it would
be possible."

"Now that MacBean, the doctor, you know: did you hear what he said about
the fresh water coming down from the hills in the rainy season, and
making gaps in the coral because fresh water killed the insects that
make the coral?"

"Yes, I heard him," said Strachan, wondering what fault Green could find
with what seemed to him a very lucid explanation.

"As if I was going to swallow that!" said the other. "The rainy season,
indeed! Why, every one knows that rain never falls in Egypt."

"But, my dear fellow, this isn't Egypt for one thing, and it rains
sometimes everywhere, I expect," said Tom, who was somewhat tired of
imposing on the innocence of Green, who was a very willing and good-
tempered lad. "Do you know you remind me of a very old story of a
sailor-lad who returned home to his grandmother after a cruise in these
very waters. It may be familiar to you."

"I don't remember it," said Green.

"Well, it is really so apt that I will tell it."

"`What did you see that was curious, Jack?' asked the old woman. `Well,
granny, there were flying fish; they came right out of