"Oh, stow it!" says Caius Pengelly, very sour. "We'd found suthin' else to talk about; and if the women have the laugh of us to-day, who's responsible, after all? Why, you—you, with your darned silly song about Adam and Eve. If you hadn't provoked your wife, this here wouldn't ha' happened."
"Indeed?" says the monkey-fellow, crossing his legs and puffing. "So you've found something better to talk about? What's that, I'd like to know?"
"Why, there's a press-gang out," says Treleaven. "But there! a fellow with your shaped legs don't take no interest in press-gangs, I reckon."
"Ah, to be sure," says the little man—but he winced and uncrossed his legs all the same, feeling sorry he'd made 'em so conspicuous—"ah, to be sure, a press-gang! I met 'em; but, as it happens, that's no change of subject."
"Us don't feel in no mood to stomach your fun to-night, Hancock; and so I warn 'ee," put in Pengelly, who had been drinking more than usual and spoke thick. "If you've a meaning up your sleeve, you'd best shake it out."
Hancock chuckled. "You fellows have no invention," he said; "no resource at all, as I may call it. You stake on this race, and, when the women beat you, you lie down and squeal. Well, you may thank me that I'm built different: I bide my time, but when the clock strikes I strike with it. I never did approve of women dressing man-fashion: but what's the use of making a row in the house? 'The time is bound to come,' said I to myself; and come it has. If you want a good story cut short, I met the press-gang just now and turned 'em on to raid the Sailor's Return: and if by to-morrow the women down there have any crow over us, then I'm a Dutchman, that's all!"
"Bejimbers, Hancock," says Treleaven, standing up and looking uneasy, "you carry it far, I must say!"
"Far? A jolly good joke, I should call it," answers Hancock, making bold to cross his legs again.
And with that there comes a voice crying pillaloo in the passage outside; and, without so much as a knock, a woman runs in with a face like a sheet—Sam Hockaday's wife, from the Sailor's Return.
"Oh, Mr. Oke—Mr. Oke, whatever is to be done! The press has collared Sally Hancock and all her gang! Some they've kilt, and wounded others, and all they've a-bound and carried off and shipped at the quay-door. Oh, Mr. Oke, our house is ruined for ever!"