The Captain turned to Uncle Abimelech, and said:
“Happen you might remember Sadler's tune to that verse, 'Sailor, my sailor boy, bonny and blue'?”
“He never said no such impudent thing to me,” said Uncle Abimelech wrathfully. “I'd 'a' whaled him good.”
“Why, that's true, Abe,” said Captain Buckingham. “You wasn't much on looks.”
Stevey Todd said:
“They changed that name, Saleratus.”
“That's true too,” said Captain Buckingham. “An outlandish name is bad for a town, or a ship, or a man; same as the Anaconda, for the Anaconda had bad luck, same as Abimelech Dalrimple. He'd never've got his brains frazzled if he'd been named Bill.”
He paused several minutes before going on, to think over this theory of names.