'
"He looked me all over--I tell you I was pretty ragged; nothin' but a
shirt and pants on, and they was almighty tore up, especially where most
everybody wants to be covered--and Bill was no better. We'd 'bout used
up our clo'es so that sail-needles nor nothin' else wouldn't a-done us
no good, and we had no time nor no spare cash to go ashore and
get others.
"While I was a-talkin', the old feller's eyes was a-borin' into
mine--then he roared out, 'No, sir; you won't!--you won't pay one d--d
shillin', sir. You'll go back to your work, and if there's anything you
want in the way of grub or supplies send here for it and you shall have
it. Good-day.' I tell ye he was a rum one."
"Was that the last time you saw him?" I asked.
"Not much. When we got 'longside the brig the next day, her Cap'n see
that twenty-one-ton stone settin' up on the deck of the Screamer,
lookin' like a big white church, and he got so scared he went ashore and
started a yarn that we couldn't lift that stone sixteen feet in the air,
and over her rail and down into the hold, and that we'd smash his brig,
and it got to the Admiral's ears, and down come two English engineers,
in cork helmets and white jackets and gold buttons, spic' an' span as if
they'd stepped out of the chart-room of a yacht.
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