"Well, douse my toplights, but I'm glad to see ye all!" cried Billy Dill, as he shook hands. "It's kind o' you to pay a visit to such an old wreck as I am."
"Oh, you're no wreck, Mr. Dill," answered Oliver Wadsworth. "We'll soon have you as right and tight as any craft afloat," he added, falling into the tar's manner of speaking.
"Bless the day when I can float once more, sir. Do you know, I've been thinkin' that a whiff o' salt air would do me a sight o' good. Might fix my steerin' apparatus," and the tar tapped his forehead.
"Then you must have a trip to the ocean, by all means," said Caspar Potts. He turned to the rich manufacturer. "It might be easily arranged."
"Dill, I want to talk to you about the time you were out in the South Seas," said Dave, who could bear the suspense no longer. "Now, please follow me closely, will you?"
"Will if I can, my hearty." The sailor's forehead began to wrinkle. "You know my memory box has got its cargo badly shifted."
"Don't you remember when you were down there—at Cavasa Island, and elsewhere—how hard times were, and how somebody helped you."
"Seems to me I do."
"Don't you remember traveling around with your bundle and your satchel? You had some money in bankbills and some loose silver, and a work on navigation, and a Bible——"
"Yes! yes! I remember the Bible—it was the one my aunt gave me—God bless her! She, Aunt Lizzie—took care o' me when my mother died, an' she told me to read it every day—an' I did, most o' the time."