"No—no," shouted the Buffer. "You'd better drop astern of us, and moor alongside that chalk barge."
"Well, so we will," said the man.
While the Blossom was executing this manœuvre, which it did in a most clumsy manner, as if the two men that worked her had never been entrusted with the care of a lighter before, the Buffer turned towards the Resurrection Man, and said in a whisper, "We must remain outside all the barges, 'cause of having room to run our boat alongside the Fairy and get the things on board easy, when we come back from the expedition down to the Lady Anne."
"To be sure," answered the Resurrection Man. "You did quite right to make those lubbers get lower down. I'm pleased with you, Jack; and now I see that I can let you be spokesman on all such occasions without any fear that you'll commit yourself."
"Why, if you want to keep in the back-ground as much as possible, Tony," replied the Buffer, "it's much better to trust these little things to me. But, I say—I think there's something queer about them chaps that have just put in here."
"So do I, Jack," said Tidkins. "They certainly know no more about managing a lighter than you and I did when we first took to it."
"Yes—but we had a regular man to help us at the beginning," observed the Buffer.
"So we had. And I precious soon sent him about his business when he had taught us our own."
"Well—p'rhaps them fellows have got a reg'lar man too," said Wicks. "But let 'em be what and who they will, my idea is, that they've taken to the same line as ourselves."
"We must find that out, Jack," observed the Resurrection Man. "If they're what you think, they will of course be respected: if they don't belong to the same class, we must ascertain what they've got on board, and then make up our minds whether any of their cargo will suit us."