“Haw-haw-haw!” laughed the swarthy, red-faced fellow. “Why don’t you give ’em the word, and have me pressed?”
“No coming back to be begged on then by Miss Kitty and Mas’ Don, after being drunk for a week. You’re a bad ’un, that’s what you are, Mike Bannock, and I wish the master wouldn’t have you here.”
“Not such a hard nut as you are, Jemmy,” said the man with a chuckle. “Sailors won’t take me—don’t want cripples to go aloft. Lookye here, Mas’ Don, there’s a leg.”
As he spoke, the great idle-looking fellow limped slowly, with an exaggerated display of lameness, to and fro past the door of the office.
“Get out, Mike,” said Don, as the man stopped. “I believe that’s nearly all sham.”
“That’s a true word, Mas’ Don,” cried Jem. “He’s only lame when he thinks about it. And now do please go on totting up, and let’s get these casks shifted ’fore your uncle comes back.”
“Well, I’m waiting, Jem,” cried the lad, opening a book he had under his arm, and in which a pencil was shut. “I could put down fifty, while you are moving one.”
“That’s all right, sir; that’s all right. I only want to keep things straight, and not have your uncle rowing you when he comes back. Seems to me as life’s getting to be one jolly row. What with my Sally at home, and your uncle here, and you always down in the mouth, and Mike not sticking to his work, things is as miserable as mizzar.”
“He’s hen-pecked, that’s what he is,” chuckled Mike, going to the handle of the crane. “Poor old Jemmy! Hen-pecked, that’s what’s the matter with him.”
“Let him alone, Mike,” said Don quietly.