“I know the boat’s capabilities better than you can tell me,” said my uncle shortly, “and I do not require help.”
“Then we’ve made a bad job of it, boy,” said the carpenter.
“The gentleman don’t know what we can do, Bill, and how useful we should be.”
“I daresay,” said my uncle, frowning, “but I do not want a man, nor another lad.”
“If you’ll only let me stop, sir,” said the boy piteously. “I don’t want no wages, and I won’t eat much, only what you’ve done with, and there arn’t nothing I won’t do. I’ll carry anything, and work—oh, how I will work! I’ll be like your dog, I will, and you can both knock me about and kick me, and I won’t say a word. You won’t hit me half so hard as the skipper and the men did; and even if you did, you’re only two, and there’s twenty of them; so if you’re allus doing it I shall be ten times better off.”
“It’s my duty to send you and your mate, here, back to the ship,” said Uncle Dick.
“Oh, don’t say that, sir,” cried the boy; “but if you did, we shouldn’t go, for Bill Cross said if you wouldn’t take us along with you we’d go and live in the woods, and if we starved to death there, we should be better off than aboard ship.”
“But you signed for the voyage, my man,” said Uncle Dick, “and if I consented to take you with me I should be helping you to defraud the owners.”
“Serve the owners right, sir, for having their people treated like dogs, or worse,” growled the carpenter. “’Sides, I don’t see what fraud there is in it. I’ve worked hard these two months, and drawn no pay. They’ll get that, and they may have it and welcome.”
“That’s all very well,” said Uncle Dick, “but a bargain’s a bargain. The want of two hands in an emergency may mean the loss of the ship, and you and this lad have deserted. No; I can’t agree to it; you must take your boat and go back.”