We rowed back kind of silent and discouraged, and climbed aboard. The whole crew were sitting up on deck smoking pipes when we came up the ladder, and Naboth says, “There they be.”
“So they be,” says Rameses III.
But Tom, the engineer, didn’t say a word, like always.
“Boys,” says Naboth, “is a nuisance.”
“I hold,” says Rameses III, “that they hain’t.”
“Why?” says Naboth.
“Because there hain’t no law agin ’em. There’s a law against nuisances. You can sue a man for a nuisance, and if you go commit some kind of a nuisance or other, I dunno but what they could put you in jail. But the’ hain’t a state in the Union that’s got a law agin boys. Therefore,” says he, “that proves they can’t be nuisances.”
“You’re wrong,” says Naboth, “like you always be. You hain’t got no head to reason out things. No. All you do is git an idee, and then open up your mouth and start talkin’. If a word of reason was ever to come out of your mouth, your lips ’ud be so s’prised they’d blister. Now I hold boys is the worst nuisances the’ is.”
“Why?” says Rameses III, kind of warlike.
“Because,” says Naboth, “they’re always bein’ nuisances, and nobody kin discover a way to stop ’em. You can’t drownd ’em like kittens, can you?”