“‘Come below,’ Bill would cry, ‘and I’ll see if a big ugly lubber like you is to cheek me!’
“‘Go with him, Davis!’ half a dozen would cry. ‘I’ll hold the youngster!’
“And there would be such a scramble to get you, that I used to wonder you weren’t torn to pieces. And all the while that animal with the long skinny middle finger would be jumping around like a demon and crying—
“‘Ay-ay!—Ay-ay!—Ay-ay!’
“As he never cried like this without all the monkeys following suit, and all the parrots whistling and shrieking—on occasions like these, Nie, there was five minutes of a rough ship, I can tell you.”
Note 1. Medical comforts are luxuries for the sick, bought at the surgeon’s discretion out of the sick-mess fund.