“Aw!” said he, addressing himself to Frank, who had stepped to the side to hand him one of the man-ropes, “there’s the police commissioner’s boat coming, and I think I’ll stop and ’ave a look at those four convicts I ’ear you’ve got on board. Hif they’re the ones I think they hare hit’s a wonder they didn’t take your vessel from you. But it cawn’t be they—it cawn’t be.”
“I don’t know whom you have in your mind, of course,” replied Frank, who was highly amused by the patronizing manner in which the young Englishman addressed him. “One of them showed a disposition to smash things, but he is now in irons, while the others are in the forecastle under guard. The quarrelsome one gave the name of Waters.”
“Waters? Aw! it is he. It is weally wonderful how you managed to secure him, for he is a wetired membaw of the Hinglish prize wing. Hit must ’ave taken ’alf your crew to do it.”
“On the contrary,” said Frank, “he was very quickly and easily vanquished by that man you see standing there.”
“Aw! you surprise me. I must weally ’ave a look at the gentleman,” said the consul’s clerk. “He must be simply prodigious. Hisn’t he an Hinglish gentleman?”
“No, sir,” said Frank, hardly able to control himself. “He’s an American, every inch of him, and probably the first representative of his class that you ever saw.”
The consul’s clerk fumbled in his pocket for a few minutes, and presently drew out a gold eyeglass. He had some trouble in fixing it under his right eyebrow, and when he got it placed to his satisfaction he looked in the direction Frank pointed, and met the steady gaze of Dick Lewis’s honest gray eyes. The stalwart backwoodsman, in company with his friend, Bob Kelly, was leaning against the rail, and, although the two men probably did not dream of such a thing, they presented a picture that an artist would have been glad to reproduce on canvas.
“Aw!” exclaimed the young Englishman; “what very extraordinary-looking persons. If I might be allowed the expression, I should say that they had just come hout of the woods.”
“You have hit the nail squarely on the head,” said Frank. “They are professional trappers and Indian fighters.”
The clerk started, and let his eyeglass fall in his excitement. He was so surprised that he forgot to put in his usual drawl, and substitute w for r when he spoke again.