"'Have you got that money with you?' 'No,' I said, 'I haven't,' and I ups and tells him just how we was fixed, and how we had worked, and how short we was of grub and clothes and money, and then I said, 'an' now I come to tell ye that I hit the dock fair and square, and it was all my fault, and that I'll pay whatever you say is right when I put this stone 'board and get my pay.'
"He looked me all over—I tell you I was pretty ragged; nothin' but a shirt and pants on, and they was almighty tore up, especially where most everybody wants to be covered—and Bill was no better. We'd 'bout used up our clo'es so that sail-needles nor nothin' else wouldn't a-done us no good, and we had no time nor no spare cash to go ashore and get others.
"While I was a-talkin', the old feller's eyes was a-borin' into mine—then he roared out, 'No, sir; you won't!—you won't pay one d—d shillin', sir. You'll go back to your work, and if there's anything you want in the way of grub or supplies send here for it and you shall have it. Good-day.' I tell ye he was a rum one."
"Was that the last time you saw him?" I asked.
"Not much. When we got 'longside the brig the next day, her Cap'n see that twenty-one-ton stone settin' up on the deck of the Screamer, lookin' like a big white church, and he got so scared he went ashore and started a yarn that we couldn't lift that stone sixteen feet in the air, and over her rail and down into the hold, and that we'd smash his brig, and it got to the Admiral's ears, and down come two English engineers, in cork helmets and white jackets and gold buttons, spic' an' span as if they'd stepped out of the chart-room of a yacht. One was a colonel and the other was a major. They were both just back from India, and natty-lookin' chaps as you ever saw. And clear stuff all the way through—you could tell that before they opened their mouths.
"I was on the deck of the Screamer, overhaulin' the fall, surrounded by most of the crew, gettin' ready to h'ist the stone, when I first saw 'em. They and the Cap'n were away up above me, leanin' over the rail, lookin' at the stone church that some o' the boys was puttin' the chains 'round. Bill Nevins was down in the fo'c's'le, firin' up, with the safety-valve set at 125 pounds. He had half a keg o' rosin and a can o' kerosene to help out with in case we wanted a few pounds extry in the middle of the tea-party. Pretty soon I heard one of 'em holler:
"'Ahoy! Is the Captain aboard?'
"'He is,' I said, steppin' out. 'Who wants him?'
"'Colonel Throckmorton,' he says, 'and Major Severn.'
"'Come aboard, gentlemen,' I says.