to sea. Had the boy known of it he would have been much surprised,
for he never dreamed of such a thing.

"How did you get along at school to-day?" asked Captain Spark, as
Mrs. Henderson went out to get dinner.

"Pretty well."

"Didn't put any bent pins in the teacher's chair, did you?"

"No, sir."

The boy hoped the captain would not ask him what other prank he had
been up to, for the truth was that Bob had that morning taken a live
mouse to the classroom, releasing it during a study period, and
nearly sending the woman teacher and the girl pupils into hysterics.
His part had not been discovered, but the teacher had threatened to
keep the whole class of boys in that night until the guilty one
confessed, and Bob knew he would have to tell sooner or later, if
some of his companions did not "squeal" on him, in order that they
might be released from suspicion.

"That's right," went on the mariner. "Never put bent pins in the
teacher's chair."

As Bob feared, some one during the afternoon session told of his
part in the mouse episode, and he was the only one kept in. The
teacher made him stay while she corrected a lot of examination
papers, and in the silent schoolroom the boy began to wish he had
not been so fond of a "joke."