Chapter 29
"What do you mean by that?" asked Murray.
"Look here, and I'll show you."
"Well, I'm looking; but it's too dark to see what you are fumbling over."
"How stupid! What a blind old bat you are! Well, it's a piece of plum duff."
"Why, you're like a school-boy," said Murray.
"Oh no, I'm not."
"You may say oh no you're not, but fancy me saving up a bit of cold pudding from dinner and bringing it out of my jacket pocket to eat!"
"Ah, but you have no reason for doing it. I have."
"What, are you going to use it as a bait?"
"That's it, my son; but I'm not going to use hook or line."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Throw it over for one of the sharks we saw cruising about before sundown."
"But what for? You don't want to pet sharks with cold pudding."
"No. Guess again."
"Stuff! Speak out."
"Poison--cold pison."
"What! Why, you would never see the brute that took it turn up in the darkness."
"Don't want to, my son," said the lad solemnly.
"Look here, d.i.c.k, it's too hot, to-night, and I'm too tired and sleepy to try and puzzle out your conundrums, so if you want me to understand what you're about you had better speak out. What a rum chap you are!"
"I am."
"One hour you're all a fellow could wish; the next you are red-hot to quarrel. See how you were this afternoon when the doctor was talking to you."
"Ah! I was out of temper then, but now I feel so happy that a child might play with me."
"Glad to hear it, but I don't want to be child-like, and I don't want to play."
"Perhaps not, but you'll be interested."
"Fire away,
"I had an idea."
"Well, look sharp, or I shall fall asleep with my head resting on my arms."
"Well, I'll tell you," said Roberts. "You see that solid lump of pudding?"
"I told you before I can't see it."
"Feel it then."
"No, I'll be hanged if I do! Why should I feel a nasty piece of cold pudding?"
"Don't be so jolly particular; it's quite dry."
"Look here, d.i.c.k, are you going off your head?"
"I thought I was when the idea came, for it set me laughing so that I could not stop myself."
"Come, tell me what it all means, or I shall go below to my berth. What is there in all this?"
"Poison, I tell you."
"Yes, you told me before; but what does it mean?"
"You see that lump of pudding; well, there's poison in it."
"d.i.c.k Roberts, I'm hot and easily aggravated. If you go on like this I shall be as quarrelsome as you were this afternoon."
"Well, there, it was all my idea that I had this afternoon. I got that lump of pudding from the cook, took it down to my berth, pulled out my knife, put the box on the side of the pudding, and cut out a piece exactly the size of the box."
"Wh-a-a-t! You mean you cut a piece out of the box just the size of the pudding?"
"No, I don't, my son. You don't understand yet. Can't you see I'm talking about a pill-box?"
"Oh-h-h!"
"Now don't you see? I cut a hole in the pudding and slipped the box in, and then made a stopper of the pudding I had cut out, and corked up the hole with the box inside."
"I begin to see now," said Murray. "A pill-box full of poison to kill the shark that swallows the poison."
"I don't care whether it kills the fish or no as long as I get rid of the stuff."
"Now you are getting confused again. Why should you try to poison a shark like this? What good would it do--what difference would one shark make out of the thousands which infest the sea?"
"Oh, Franky, what a Dummkopf you are, as the Germans say!"
"Don't care what the Germans say, and I dare say I am a stupid-head, for I can't make out what you are driving at."
"You can't? Why, I'm going to make the shark take the poison instead of taking it myself."