"What are you about, Don John?" roared Laud Cavendish, who had seen the approaching skiff, but had not chosen to hail her.
"What are you about?" demanded Donald, answering the question with another, Yankee fashion, as he jammed his boat-hook into the side of the Juno, and drew the skiff up to the yacht, from which it had receded.
Taking the painter, he jumped on the forward deck of the Juno, with the boat-hook still in his hand.
"What do you mean by smashing into me in that kind of style, and jabbing your boat-hook into the side of my boat?" cried Laud, as fiercely as he could pitch his tones, though there seemed to be a want of vim to them.
"What do you mean by setting the Maud afire?" demanded Donald. "That's what I want to know."
"Who set her afire?" replied Laud, in rather hollow tones.
"I didn't set her afire, Don John," protested Laud.
"Yes, you did! I can prove it, and I will prove it, too."
"You are excited, Don John. You don't know what you are talking about."
"I think I do, and I'll bet you'll understand it, too, if there is any law left in the State of Maine."
"I mean what I say, and say what I mean."
"Yes, you have! Didn't I see you sneaking across the wharf? Didn't I see your mainsail alongside the pier? You can't humbug me. I know a pint of soft soap from a pound of cheese," rattled Donald, who could talk very fast when he was both excited and enraged; and Laud's tongue was no match for his member.
"I tell you, I haven't been near the Maud."
"Don't tell me! I saw it all; I have two eyes that I wouldn't sell for two cents apiece; and I'll put you over the road at a two-forty gait."
Laud saw that it was no use to argue the point, and he held his peace, till the boat-builder had exhausted his rhetoric, and his stock of expletives.
"What did you do it for, Laud?" asked he, at last, in a comparatively quiet tone.
"I have told you a dozen times I didn't do it," replied the accused. "You talk so fast I can't get a word in edgeways."
"It's no use for you to deny it," added Don John.
"Yes, I do; and I know you tried to do it. If I hadn't been over by the shop, you would have done it."
[Illustration: DON JOHN VISITS THE JUNO. Page 230.]
"I didn't do it, I repeat. Do you think I would lie about it? Do you think I have no sense of honor about me!"