“I can’t, sir. ’Strue as goodness, sir, I can’t.”
“Where are you?” moaned the boy, who was lying on his back staring with lack-lustre eyes up at the ceiling just above his head.
“I dunno, sir; I think I’m lying on the carpet, sir, close to the shelf I put you on.”
“Then go away somewhere; you make me feel as if I could kill you.”
“Wish you would, sir,” groaned the man. “I’d take it kindly of you.”
“Oh, don’t talk such nonsense,” sighed Jack. “Oh, my head, my head!”
“Oh, mine, sir, and it ain’t nonsense at all. It’s real earnest. Why was I such a fool as to come, and why did I grin at you, and say as you was a poor-plucked ’un? It’s like a judgment on me. But I always was so conceited.”
“Call some one to help you to your berth.”
“I dursn’t, sir. If I did, those sailor chaps would see as it was all over with me and pitch me overboard.”
“Ned, you are torturing me,” said Jack; and he turned himself a little to look down at the miserable being on the floor.