“Why,” I said, “if he deserved it?”
“Well, you see, sir, it’s like this; if me or Neb or Barney there had scared one of the officers, and the skipper had knocked us down, why, we shouldn’t ha’ liked it—eh, mates?”
“No,” came in a growl.
“Course not; but then we’re Englishmen, and knowing as we was in the wrong, why, next day we should have forgot all about it.”
“Ay, ay,” growled Dumlow, and Barney nodded his acquiescence.
“But strikes me, sir—you needn’t tell the skipper I says so, because p’r’aps I’m wrong—strikes me as that chap won’t forget it, and I should be sorry for there to be any more rows with ladies on board, ’cause they don’t like it. But I say, sir!”
“Yes, Hampton,” I replied.
“I thought as Mr Walters as had been to sea afore was going to put you through it all. When’s he going to show on deck?”
“Oh, he’ll come up as soon as he’s well enough,” I said.
“If I was skipper, he’d be well enough now,” said the sailor, roughly. “More you gives way to being sea-sick, more you may. I don’t say as it’s nice, far from it; but if a man shows fight, he soon gets too many for it. Here’s him been a voyage, and you arn’t. He lies below, below, below in his bunk, and you goes about just as if you was at home.”