"Yes, yes. I can't sail my ship too well, nor you attend to your business too well. But if I was to sail two ships instead of one, or if I was to be on deck instead of down at my dinner when she was going before the wind in the middle of the Atlantic, I shouldn't do my best when it came on to blow hard in the night."
"That's all very true. But I don't think it applies to me. I never miss my dinner, by any chance."
"Don't you turn your blind eye on my signal, Dick. You know what I mean well enough. I've got a proposal to make—the jolliest thing in the world."
"Go on. I'm listening."
"Mary ain't quite so well again—is she now?"
"Well, I don't think she's been getting on so fast. I suppose it's the spring weather."
"Why, you may call it summer now. But she ain't as I should like to see her, the darling."
"Well, no. I must confess I'm sometimes rather uneasy about her."
"And there's Jane. She don't look at home, somehow."