“You will tell me, in as few words as possible, how the row started.”
“We had finished scrubbing decks, sir. I had been seasick and was going forward on a run, carrying my deck swab. Somehow it caught this man between the legs and upset him, sir.”
“How did he get the wound on his nose, if that is true?”
“He must have hurt himself in falling.”
The explanation sounded very lame to all who heard it, though, as the reader knows, it was wholly within the facts.
“You mean to tell me you did not strike him at all?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I struck him. I hit him as hard as I could.”
“Plumb on the nose, sir.”
“What excuse have you to offer for assaulting a man who already, according to your own admission, was injured?”