The Pink Rat, Bubbles, and Rawlins, seeing no toast waiting for them, dashed at the China Doll, charged him into a corner, threw their wet oilskins over him, and fell in a heap on top.
"Toast must be ready!" they yelled as they allowed him to get up.
"I can't make it fast enough when the Orphan's here, alone; look at him--that's his second."
The Orphan had just taken a huge bite out of the new piece; with a rush they threw themselves on him; in the mêlée of feet, legs, and chairs the China Doll captured the toasting-fork, stuck another bit of bread on it, and crouched in front of the fire again.
The general scramble was terminated by the noise of the pantry hatch sliding back, and an enormous, purple-faced marine servant, in his shirt-sleeves, pushed in a big teapot.
"Come along, Barnes, cut us some more bread; open a tin of 'sharks'; where've you put my biscuits?" they called at him.
By this time the third piece of toast was done to a turn; and the Pink Rat, in the absence of the Sub, on watch, was just going to claim it, when in came Uncle Podger--the Clerk--a broad-shouldered, squat youth, with a breezy, cheery countenance, and ruffled hair, who had been promoted to the exalted rank of Clerk exactly three weeks before, and had, therefore, been just a year and three weeks in the Service.
His arrival was greeted with shouts of "Uncle Podger, your minion is slack again at the toast business. The China Doll must be beaten."
The Assistant Clerk dodged the Pink Rat and wriggled free, squealing out that this piece was for the Sub.
"He'll beat me if it isn't ready. He'll be down from the bridge in a minute," he laughed, and took shelter behind his superior officer, explaining that "he'd done one for the Sub, and the Orphan ate that; another for the Pink Rat, and the Orphan had eaten that too; the Sub must have this, mustn't he?"
"Then this is the third," Uncle Podger said with mock gravity. "You were wrong, my young subordinate, very wrong indeed, to give away those other pieces; this one is mine." He gently removed the beautifully browned bread from the prongs of the fork.
"Yes--sir," said the China Doll, dropping his eyelids and pretending to be very humble.
"By the King's Regulations and Gun-room Instructions, there can be no doubt about it, can there?"