“Oh, you mean the Sargasso Sea!” cried Rodd. “Nay, I don’t, sir; I means the Sargassey Sea.”
“Well, that’s the same thing, only you spell it differently,” cried Rodd.
“Oh no, sir; that I don’t. That’s a thing as I never pretended to do. I can take my spell at the pump or at any other job; but what you call spelling was never in my way.”
“But you mean the same thing,” cried Rodd. “It isn’t Sar-gass-ey; it’s Sar-gass-o.”
“Ho! Sar-gass-ho, is it, sir?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All right, sir; I’m willing. But my one was all alive with little things, little fish and slugs and snails of all kinds of rum sorts; and our second luff used to make us haul in great lengths of the seaweed as was floating about, and then help him to pick ’em out into bottles till they were quite full, and looking just as if they was pickles same as you see in the grocers’ shops in Plymouth town.”
“Well, the same as you saw uncle and me do that day during the calm?”
“Yes, sir, just like that, only yours as you did were small shop and ours was like big warehouse, though I don’t think our doctor did much good with them, because so many of them used to go bad, and our cook and his mate used to have to throw no end away and wash the bottles.”
“Ah, ours won’t go bad,” said Rodd confidently. “My uncle will preserve them differently to that.”