“Yes, it’s glue,” remarked the mariner.  “Just like that on the chair.  Bob,” he asked suddenly, “did you put that glue there?”

Now, with all his faults, Bob would never tell a lie.  He regarded that as cowardly, and he was always willing to take whatever punishment was coming to him for his “jokes.”

“Yes, captain,” he said in a low voice.  “I did it.”

“Ha!  I thought so.”

“Bob Henderson!” exclaimed his mother, her face flushing red with mortification.  “Did you play that horrid joke on the minister?”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to?”

“No.  I thought some one else was going to sit on that chair.”

“You thought some one else was?  Why, that’s just as bad—­almost.  Who did you think would sit there?”

“Captain Spark!”

“You young rascal!” exclaimed the commander of the Eagle, but he did not seem very angry.  “So that was intended to anchor me down, eh?  Well, I must look into this.”

“I thought you’d sit there,” went on Bob.

“So I was going to, but the minister made me change, as he’s a little deaf on one side, and he wanted to ask me some questions about the Fiji Islanders.”

There was now quite a crowd around Bob, his mother, and the captain.  Mrs. Henderson did not know what to do.  Up to now Bob’s pranks had been bad enough, but to play this trick on the minister, and at the annual donation supper, where nearly every person in the village was present, was the climax.  She felt that she had been much humiliated.

Bob’s father heard what had happened, and came up to his son.

“Bob,” he said, in a curiously quiet voice, “you must go home at once.  I shall have to punish you severely for this.”

Bob knew what that meant.  He wished, most heartily, that he had not played this last prank.  But it was too late now.

“I told you I thought he was up to something,” whispered the captain to Mrs. Henderson.

“Yes, you were right,” she admitted.  “Now my mind is made up.  Captain, I wish you would take him to sea with you at once!  I can stand his foolishness no longer!”

Bob was out of the room by this time and did not hear his mother’s decision.

“Do you mean that, Lucy?” asked Captain Spark eagerly.

“Yes, I do.  I am determined.  Bob shall go to sea.  Perhaps it will teach him a lesson, and he will mend his ways.”

“It will be the making of him,” declared the captain heartily.  “I’m glad you decided this.  I’ll make arrangements at once.”

CHAPTER VII

BOB IS DELIGHTED

The excitement caused by Bob’s prank had somewhat quieted down, and the preparations went on for giving the young people their supper.  Several of Bob’s chums, however, fearful that they might be suspected of having taken part in the trick, left the church.