Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 4

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JUST SAILORS.
Betty, having made an excellent breakfast, thank you, slipped from her chair and sidled round the table to me. Her father's guests are, naturally and without exception, Betty's slaves, to do with as she deems best. To her they are known, regardless of age, either by their Christian names or as "Mr. --er." I had enjoyed the privilege of her acquaintance for five years, but was still included in the second category.
Betty has an appealing eye, freckles, and most fascinating red-gold hair, and on the morning of which I write, after preparing the attack with the first, she gently massaged my face with the second and third, the while insinuating into my own a small hand not innocent of marmalade. Betty is seven or thereabouts. "Mr. --er," she said, "what shall we be to-day?"
"Let us," I replied hastily, "pretend to be not quite at our best this morning, and have a quiet time in the deck-chairs on the lawn." Betty very naturally paid no regard whatever to this cowardly suggestion.
"I'm not quite sure," she said, "if we will be pirates or soldiers or just sailors. What do you think?"
Pirates sounded rather strenuous for so hot a day. Soldiers, I felt sure, involved my becoming a German prisoner and parading the garden paths with my arms up, crying "Kamerad!" while Betty, gun in hand, shepherded and prodded me from behind. Just sailors, on the other hand, smacked of gentle sculling exercise in the dinghy on the lake, so I said, "Let's be just sailors."
But a sailor's life, as interpreted by Betty, is no rest cure. On land it includes an exaggerated rolling gait--itself somewhat fatiguing--and intervals of active participation in that most exacting dance, the hornpipe, to one's own whistling accompaniment. At odd moments, also, it appears that the best sailors double briskly to such melodies as "Tipperary" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning."
It was only when we arrived by the lake-side that Betty observed my gumboots; instantly a return to the house in search of Daddy's nautical footgear was necessitated. This, though generous in dimensions, was finally induced to remain in position on Betty's small feet, her own boots being, of course, retained.
The dinghy was launched and, after a little preliminary wading in the gum-boots, the crew embarked. Betty's future profession will, I am sure, be that of quick-change artist. In less than ten minutes she had risen from cabin-boy to skipper, _via_ ordinary seaman, A.B., bo'sun and various grades of mate. My rank, which had at the outset been that of admiral, as speedily declined, until I was merely the donkey-engine greaser, whose duties appeared to include that of helmsman (Betty is not yet an adept with two sculls).
Our vessel also changed its character with lightning rapidity. It was in turn a ferry-boat--imitation of passengers descending the gangway by rhythmical patting of hand on thwart; a hospital ship chased by a submarine--cormorant's neck and head naturally mistaken for periscope; a destroyer attacking a submarine--said cormorant kindly obliging with quick diving act when approached; a food-ship laden with bananas represented by rushes culled from the banks; and a smuggler running cargoes of French wine contained in an elderly empty bottle discovered in the mud above high-water mark. It was breathless work.
The disaster occurred when Betty, against my maturer judgment, insisted upon the exploration on foot of a mangrove swamp on the shore of a cannibal-infested South Sea island. The immediate cause was a suddenly developed attachment on the part of one of Daddy's sea-boots to the mud on the lake-side. The twain refused to be parted, and the youthful explorer measured her length in the mire.
Generously overlooking my carelessness in not warning her that we were traversing a quicksand, Betty, rather shaken, very muddy and with a suspicion of tears in her voice, bound me by a blood-curdling nautical oath not to breathe a word of the mishap to Mummy, Daddy or Miss Watt, her governess. The pledge having been given, Betty, the offending boots discarded, fled to her own room by way of the back-door.
It was then twelve o'clock, and in the hour that remained before luncheon I was fertile in excuses for Betty's absence from the scene; in fact, the necessity for concealing the calamity quite marred what should have been a time of well-earned relaxation.
At last we sat down to the midday meal, and the members of the house-party began to relate their morning's adventures. Finally some thoughtless person said, "Well, Betty, and what mischief have you been up to?"
Betty, quite recovered and with a radiant smile, replied, "Oh, Mr. --er and I had a scrumptious time on the lake. We were sailors--just sailors--and did all sorts of lovely things, didn't we, Mr. --er?"
I agreed, and Betty went on to her peroration:
"And at