funny. You know that was about two hundred years ago."
"No, I didn't," asserted Jimmy. "I didn't know I was pulling a bone, swear I didn't."
Visions of adventures began to float through the lads' fancies.
"Oh, ye-ah, I remember!" exclaimed Legs with sudden enthusiasm. "Teach? By Jebo, he's the very fellow Stevenson—you know, the guy who wrote Kidnapped and Treasure Island—tells about in The Master of . . . Oh, shucks!"
"Master of Oh Shucks!" jeered Cat.
"Of Ball—Ball—Ball," Legs stumbled, "Oh yes, I know, The Master of Ballantre. The guy supposed to be telling the yarn was captured by pirates who ran up the black flag and made the skipper and 'most all the crew of the captured ship walk the plank, all except two or three. Then Teach blacked up his face and curled his hair in rings and crammed his mouth full of glass and chewed it to make himself spit blood. Then he stuck his belt full of pistols and brandished a dirk and cussed a blue streak—pulled off a regular bughouse parade up and
