“That’s a pity, sir. Well, I dunno what you’d better do.”
“Face uncle, and tell him the whole truth.”
“To be sure, sir. Of course. That’s the way you’d better lay your head—to the wind like. And, look here, sir!”
“I can’t look, Tom; my eyes feel closed up, and I can hardly see a bit.”
“I mean look here with understanding, sir. I used to be with a skipper who was a downright savage if we got beaten off, and threatened to flog us. But if we won, and boarded a ship and took her, he’d laugh at our hurts and come round and shake hands and call us his brave lads.”
“But what has that to do with uncle seeing me in this horrible state?”
“Why, don’t you see, sir?” cried the sailor, eagerly. “He’s a captain, and a fighting man.”
Aleck frowned, but the sailor did not notice it, and went on:
“You ups and tells him that Big Jem and the pack o’ blackguard riff-raff come and ’sulted yer and said what you wouldn’t tell me. The captain wouldn’t want you to put up with that. I know the captain ’most as well as you do. ‘Hullo!’ he says; ‘what ha’ you been doing—how did you get in that condition?’ he says—just like that. Then you ups and tells him you had it out with Big Jem and the rest. ‘What for, sir?’ he says—just like that. ‘For saying,’—you know what, sir—you says, and tells him right out, though you wouldn’t tell me. ‘And you let that big, ugly, blackguardly warmint thrash you like that?’ he says, in his fierce way—just like that. Then your turn comes, and you ups and says, ’most as chuff as he does: ‘No, uncle,’ you says, ‘I give him the orflest leathering he ever had in his life.’ ‘Did you, Aleck?’ he says, rubbing his hands together, joyful like. ‘Well done, my boy,’ he says; ‘I like that. I wish I’d been there to see. Brayvo!—Now go and wash your face and brush your clothes and ’air.’”
“Think he would, Tom?”