"Yes, I think so. Cook has been throwing scraps overboard, I suppose.-- See, there goes an empty meat-tin."
As he spoke the article named rose into the air, and fell with a splash in the water. At the same time Jim Slagg was seen to clamber on the bulwarks and look over.
"Come here--look alive, Stumps!" he shouted.
Stumps, whose proper name, it is but fair to state, was John Shanks, clambered clumsily to his friend's side just in time to see a shark open its horrid jaws and swallow the meat-tin.
"Well now, I never!" exclaimed Slagg. "He didn't even smell it to see if it was to his taste."
"P'r'aps he's swallowed so many before," suggested Stumps, "that he takes for granted it's all right."
"Well it's on'y flavour; and he has caught a Tartar this time," returned the other, "unless, ma
