The Pirate's Pocket Book

If you are thinking of becoming a Pirate--and there is plenty of room at the top of every profession--you will have to look about a good deal, because you will have enemies.

[Illustration: He dreams of other worlds to conquer.]

Tom Tomb--that was not his name, but it was the way he signed other people's cheques, and your father and mother will tell you that this is a very mean trick--lived partly on an island, and partly on board the Inky Murk.

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You will understand that I mean not with one foot on the island and one on the boat, but sometimes on one and sometimes on the other.

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Now T. T. never robbed the poor.

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Because it was not worth his while.

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But any person who looked rich suffered accordingly.

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The Inky Murk was the name of his boat. You can make one curiously like it with two chairs and a rug.

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One day Tomb captured a young fellow--a very handsome lad too.

It was off a certain island where Tom Tomb had a neat cottage, in the garden of which he grew flowers for a pastime.

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Because, of course, he needed a little time to himself in between his tremendous fights.

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The young fellow was stealing flowers.

He was surprised to see Captain Tomb.

When I say he was surprised, you will see what I mean by the picture.

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"What cinderadustmat do you mean," yelled Tomb, in a voice like a railway accident, "by stealing my flowers?"

"I thought they were wild," said the young fellow, taking his pipe from his mouth.

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"Wild!" shrieked Tomb. "Wild!!" he bawled.

This last yell was so powerful that three of his buttons flew off his coat.

The young fellow caught them neatly in his left hand, and presented them to the Captain on bended knee.

[Illustration]

The neat act saved the lad's life.

"An honour to serve you, Captain Thomas Tomb," said he.

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"You know me?" asked Tomb, smiling upon the boy.

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"I thought it must be your face," said the lad boldly.

He was about to speak again, had not Tomb silenced him with a gesture. He liked the lad.

Had he spoken again, Tomb would have silenced him for ever.

He was about to say that any other man with a face like that would have died long ago, from wounded vanity.

[Illustration: From a very rare old print.]

"Would you care to be a Pirate, my youthful fellow?" said Tomb.

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The lad hesitated. "My father . . ." he began.

"Dead," said Tomb, in a hollow voice.

"My mother . . ."

"Dead," Tomb replied, in a monotonous whisper.

"My brother and sister . . ."

Tomb raised a sorrowful hand: his heart was touched.

"My family . . ." said the young man in despair.

"My poor boy," said Tomb, with tears in his eyes, "my poor, dear fellow, I killed them all not an hour ago."

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"Then my sweetheart would object to my becoming a Pirate," said the lad, weeping.

"Enough," said Tomb; "you are called from henceforth Dingy David. Now to sea!"

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For ten years they plundered upon the Spanish Main, until they acquired so much money that Bilge Island, Tomb's business address, smelt of hoarded gold, and the beach glittered with jewels.

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Then both Tomb and David--I am keeping the secret of his real name to the end--became tired of so much adventure.