"You was borned?" contemptuously observed the old man who had first spoken; "you, was borned? Well, I suppose every one has been borned as well as you. But I say it's the Shambles, and I don't care a button who says it isn't."
"There's the Portland light," cried another; and so they made out each beacon as it came in view, and yarned away the time utterly regardless of its being their watch below.
The "watch on deck" worked like lightning; and Tortle, who was on the bridge with Cravan, observed they were as smart a crew as he had ever commanded.
"Yes," sneered the first lieutenant, "they can move quick enough, the lubbers, now they smell the land; they are not as smart as this in a gale of wind."
Forward, the gun-ports of the forecastle were swarming with the watch below and idlers, and it was amusing to hear their ideas as to what they would do with their money when they were paid off; the opinions of the old petty officers being listened to with the utmost attention and respect by the boys, who believed their mess-bullies possessed the most profound knowledge of nautical human affairs.
"I say, Bill Farley, won't your old woman be in Portsmouth to meet you?" observed a leathern-visaged individual to a fat old boatswain's yeoman, who, with round figure and small head, looked like a turtle standing on its hind fins.
"She will be there, me hearty—trust her. My old gal has never missed a voyage but once, and then I lost my way, and by the time I reached her I had only a penny in my pocket. Ha, ha, ha!"
This being the signal for a laugh, the spectators joined in the roar, but the moral of the story was not lost on the boys, who whispered to each other, "Ah, old Bill's bin a gay one, ain't he?"
"How are you goin' to spend your whack, Joseph?" demanded another old salt, addressing a marine who was seated on the starboard side of the forecastle. "How are you a goin' to get rid of all your fan-pinners, chummy?"