"And a little bit from her tongue, Jemmy," observed Coble.
"Why, perhaps so," replied Jemmy; "but what was it set her tongue loose but the threat of him to flog me, and what made him threaten that but the 'peaching of that fat marine?"
"Very good arguments, Jemmy. Well, I will say that for your wife, Jemmy, she does love you, and there's no sham about it."
"Never mind Jemmy's wife, let's have Jemmy's song," said Spurey; "he hasn't piped since he was pulled up by the corporal."
"No: he put my pipe out, the hippopotamus. Well, I'll give it you--it shall be about what we are talking of, Obadiah." Jemmy perched himself on the fore-end of the booms, and sang as follows:
"I suppose that you think 'cause my trousers are tarry,
And because that I ties my long hair in a tail,
While landsmen are figged out as fine as Lord Harry,
With breast-pins and cravats as white as old sail;
That I'm a strange creature, a know-nothing ninny,