“I don’t think so, Jem. I’m stouter than you fancy.”
“Oh no, you’re not, and I dessay it’ll be a tight fit; but you do it.”
“And suppose I do get out of them, what about you?”
“About me, Mas’ Don? Ah, I don’t know about me; but you could get right away, slide down the rope, get the gig up alongside—”
“When it’s swinging from the davits, Jem?”
“There you go again,” grumbled Jem. “I never did see such a fellow for chucking stumbling-blocks all over the place for a man to hit his shins against.”
“Then propose something possible. And besides, you don’t suppose I’m going away without you.”
“But I can’t get my irons off, and you can get yours.”
“I don’t know that,” said Don, trying; and, to his great surprise, finding that he could drag the ring over his ankle without much difficulty.
“There, I told you so. Slip it on again ’fore the sentry sees.”