I dare say it crossed to the Atlantic in time: for again it was the
kind of story that starts by being funny and gets funnier as each man
chooses to improve on it. . . . All I can say is, that if the body
you and I, Foe, looked down upon, that afternoon, belonged to Vliet's
missionary, I don't want to hear any more fun about it. . . . So you
see, gentlemen, this God-forsaken lot, down in the _I'll Away's_
fo'c'sle, patched it up amongst them that this man, in his hurry, had
deserted his dog. Now, as I shall tell you, if they had reasoned,
they'd have known that the dog wouldn't starve, anyway. But they
didn't reason. They were a God-forsaken lot--mostly broken men,
pliers about the islands--and it just went against their instinct
that anyone should forsake so much as a dog. If they'd known you had
forsaken a man, you Foe, they'd have tarred and burnt you.
"--Captain Hales, as it happened, hadn't caught the barking or any
faint echo of it: the reason being that he was hard of hearing,
although in the rest of his senses sharper than all his crew rolled
together, and in wits or at a bargain a match for any trader between
Chile and Palmerston.
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