“So it seems!” I said; and then there was another sneeze, and another, and another; and when I looked, there was the doctor, sitting up and staring at the figure by his side, which kept on sneezing again and again. Then, to our horror, it sat up and yawned, and threw its arms about.
Every fellow in the little tent was about to get up and run away, when the frozen sailor said, in a sleepy fashion, “Why, it’s as cold as ever!”
I tried to speak, but couldn’t. The doctor answered him, though, by saying, “How did you get here?”
“Well,” said the figure, drowsily, “that means a yarn; and if I warn’t so plaguey sleepy, I’d—Heigho!—ha!—hum!—Well, here goes!”
We sat quite awe-stricken, not a man stirring more than to put a bit of pigtail in his mouth, while the English sailor thus spun his yarn:—
Chapter Two.
The English Sailor’s Yarn.
You see, I haven’t the trick of putting it together, or else, I dare say, I could spin you no end of a yarn out of many a queer thing I’ve come across, and many a queer thing that’s happened to me up and down.