“And we don’t want to think that of you,” continued Mark. “I say, though, you do look a lot better.”
“I am, sir,” said the man, smiling. “And now we have got up here, sir, I want you to ask Sir James and the doctor to set me to work.”
“Why, you are too weak yet.”
“Weak, sir? Not so weak as that. ’Sides, doing a bit of hauling or something of that kind will help to get me in sailing trim once more. Why, arter all these long weeks lying by and feeling that I should never be a man again—why, the very sound of doing something sets one longing.”
“Well, you go on getting better.”
“Better, sir! I am better,” cried the man sharply. “I know I don’t look thin and like a fellow on the sick list, but the time I overhauled you down there at the port I felt like a walking shadder.”
“Ah, that’s the doctor’s physic,” said Dean.
“Physic, sir? Why, he never give me none—nothing but some white stuff—ten drips as he let drop carefully out of a little bottle. No, sir, it warn’t that, but getting up here where one could breathe, and now instead of lying awake in the dark with the mysture running off one’s face in drops, I just put my head down of a night feeling the cold air blowing over one, and the next minute I am fast asleep.”
“Yes, one can sleep here,” said Mark, “sound as a top.”
“Yes, sir; same here, sir. Oh, I shall be all right in a day or two, sir, if I can get to work. I don’t hold with hanging about with them two men of yourn looking at me as if I warn’t worth my salt.”