"Do you think so?" and Joshua laughingly repeated the question.
"Do I think so" said Dan, gazing with pride at his friend. "O Mr. Vanity! as if you didn't know!"
Joshua, laughing more than ever, protested that he had never given it a thought, and promised that he would take a good long look at himself in the glass that very night. At the rate the lads were going on, it appeared as if the Old Sailor's story would never be completed, and so Daniel said, to put a stop to Joshua's nonsense.
"It is all your fault, Dan," said Joshua, "because you _will_ interrupt. Well, when the Old Sailor had been in the ship for three months, it was attacked by a cruiser which had been hunting it down for a long time. All the pirates were taken--the Old Sailor and all--and sold as slaves at Algiers. They wouldn't believe his story about his not being a pirate, and he was sold for a slave with the rest of them. He worked in chains in the fields for a good many weeks--he doesn't remember how many--until Lord Exmouth bombarded the forts, and put a stop to Christian slavery. And that is the Old Sailor's pirate-story."
"And now to return to what we were saying before you commenced," said Dan. Joshua placed his hands at the back of his head, and interlacing his fingers, looked seriously at Dan, and drew a long breath: "You have something to tell me, Jo."
"I have," said Joshua. "I have made up my mind what I am going to be. You can guess if you like."
"I have no need to guess, Jo, dear; I know, I have seen it all along."
"You are going to sea," said Dan, striving to speak in a cheerful voice, but failing.
"Yes, I shall go to sea;" and Joshua drew another long breath. "How did you find it out, Dan the Wise?"
"How did I find it out, Jo the Simple? Haven't I seen it in your eyes for ever so long? Haven't you been telling me so every day? It might escape others' notice, but not mine."
"I told the Old Sailor to-day, and he clapped me on the back, and said I was a brave fellow. But he knew it all along, too, he said. And he took me into his cabin--such a cabin, Dan--and poured out a tiny glass of rum, and made me drink it. My throat was on fire for an hour afterwards."
"Tell them at once, Jo. Go home now, and tell them. I want to be left alone to think of it. O Jo! and I am going to lose you!"