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LOST ISLAND

were shipped, but little damage was done, everything movable having been securely lashed.

The cook had a miraculous faculty of keeping on his feet and manipulating dishes and pans when by all known laws of gravitation he should have been sprawling. The first time Dave was jerked off his legs by a violent roll of the ship Barnes hurled a stream of invective at him, performing wondrous gymnastics with his bushy eyebrows and balancing a stew-pan on the galley stove the while.

"Do you want me to hold you up," he fumed, "as well as do all the work in this galley? This comes of goin' to sea with babies! It's a cradle you ought to have. Me and the mate will take turns rockin' you to sleep. I'd never have come aboard this packet if I'd known you'd be— Come here," he added, softening suddenly, noticing a red stain on Dave's shirt-sleeve. "You 're an idiot, that's what you are. Why did n't you tell me you'd hurt yourself?"

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