“Why, my lad,” he said, “seems to me as it’s like pig-shearing.”
“Pig-shearing? What do you mean?”
“Much cry and little wool, sir. We’ve all been crawling about in the hold like rats, and got to where the t’others are—leastwise you have—and then you’ve come back again.”
“Yes, Bob.”
“Taken all that trouble for nothing.”
“Well, but I have been able to talk to them, and make plans.”
“Bah, sir, I don’t call them plans. What was the good of us all getting smothered as we was, just to find out as we couldn’t do nothing?”
“I communicated with Mr Brymer and Mr Frewen,” I cried.
“And said ‘How de do? I’m quite well thank you, how are you?’ Didn’t pay for the trouble, sir. We must do something better than that. What do you say, Neb?”
“I says as I arn’t going to squeedge my carcadge into that hole again if I knows it, messmate.”