The Blue Lagoon - A Romance - Book I

"Hurroo!" cried Dick, looking around at the blue and sparkling water, and banging with a stretcher on the bottom of the boat. "I'm goin' to be a sailor, aren't I, Paddy? You'll let me sail the boat, won't you, Paddy, an' show me how to row?"

"Aisy does it," said Paddy, taking hold of the child. "I haven't a sponge or towel, but I'll just wash your face in salt wather and lave you to dry in the sun."

He filled the bailing tin with sea water.

"I don't want to wash!" shouted Dick.

"Stick your face into the water in the tin," commanded Paddy. "You wouldn't be going about the place with your face like a sut-bag, would you?"

"Stick yours in!" commanded the other.

Button did so, and made a hub-bubbling noise in the water; then he lifted a wet and streaming face, and flung the contents of the bailing tin overboard.

"Now you've lost your chance," said this arch nursery strategist, "all the water's gone."

"There's more in the sea."

"There's no more to wash with, not till to-morrow--the fishes don't allow it."

"I want to wash," grumbled Dick. "I want to stick my face in the tin, same's you did; 'sides, Em hasn't washed."

"I don't mind," murmured Emmeline.

"Well, thin," said Mr Button, as if making a sudden resolve, "I'll ax the sharks." He leaned over the boat's side, his face close to the surface of the water. "Halloo there!" he shouted, and then bent his head sideways to listen; the children also looked over the side, deeply interested.

"Halloo there! Are y'aslape? Oh, there y'are! Here's a spalpeen with a dhirty face, an's wishful to wash it; may I take a bailin' tin of-- Oh, thank your 'arner, thank your 'arner--good day to you, and my respects."

"What did the shark say, Mr Button?" asked Emmeline.

"He said: `Take a bar'l full, an' welcome, Mister Button; an' it's wishful I am I had a drop of the crathur to offer you this fine marnin'.' Thin he popped his head under his fin and went aslape agin; leastwise, I heard him snore."

Emmeline nearly always "Mr Buttoned" her friend; sometimes she called him "Mr Paddy." As for Dick, it was always "Paddy," pure and simple.

Children have etiquettes of their own.

It must often strike landsmen and landswomen that the most terrible experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence of privacy. It seems an outrage on decency on the part of Providence to herd people together so. But, whoever has gone through the experience will bear me out that the human mind enlarges, and things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out there, face to face with eternity.