“Well, sir,” said Joe, “it wasn’t very easy, and that’s a fact. I wanted to have a word with you durin’ the first watch, but you was talking with Sir Edgar; and, if you hadn’t been, it’d ha’ been all the same, because I couldn’t ha’ left the forecastle without bein’ missed. So I had to wait until our watch was relieved and had gone below; and then I had to wait again until they was all asleep, when I slips out of my bunk, careless-like, leavin’ the blankets all heaped-up so that they’d look, in the dim light, as if I was still there. Then I creeps up on deck, very quiet, but ready primed with a hexcuse in case any o’ the watch wanted to know what I was doin’ on deck in my watch below. But the lookout was comfortably perched between the knight-heads, smokin’, with his back to the deck, so he didn’t see me; and, as for the other two, I expects they was in the galley, takin’ a snooze, for I didn’t see anything of ’em. So I slips aft, in the shadder of the long-boat, and dodges round abaft the mainmast until I got the companion between me and the man at the wheel, when I climbs up on the poop, and crawls along the deck on all-fours to the companion-way; then down I comes, without even Mr Forbes seein’ me.”
“All right, Joe,” said I. “But I shall have to go on deck and let the mate know, when you are ready to go for’ard again, or he might catch sight of you and pounce upon you without knowing who you are; which would simply ruin everything. However, we can arrange that presently. Now, let me know what it is that you have to tell me.”
“Well, sir, it’s just this,” returned Joe. “These here carryin’s on of mine, and the way that you’ve been down upon me of late, has done the trick; and, to-night, durin’ the second dog-watch, the bosun tackled me, and, after a good deal of box-haulin’ about, told me what their little game is, and asked me if I’d jine ’em.”
“Go on, Joe,” said I; “tell me everything that passed, as nearly as you can.”
“Well,” continued Joe—who, it may be well to explain, had, as usual, been behaving most outrageously all day—“I’m boun’ to confess that I laid it on pretty thick to-day; and so did you, sir,”—with a quiet chuckle—“but not no thicker than what I deserved. So, along in the second dog-watch, Rogers comes up to me where I was smokin’, sulky-like, under the lee of the long-boat, away from everybody else, but where anybody could see me that wanted to, and he says—
“‘Hullo, Joe, old shipmate,’ says he, ‘what’s the matter? You looks as if the hazin’ that the skipper’s been givin’ of you to-day has give you a fit of the blues!’
“‘Blues?’ says I. ‘Blues ain’t no name for it! I’m sick and tired of the ship, and everybody in her. I haven’t been given no peace nor rest,’ says I, ‘since the day when I was clumsy enough to smash the gig. Of course I was sorry I done it,’ I says, ‘and I’d ha’ said so if the skipper had only treated me properly; but I ain’t sorry now, and I means to take it out of him for the rest of the v’yage by doin’ every blessed thing I can think of to vex him. He’s made it pretty hot for me lately, and I means to make it hot for him,’ I says; ‘and you may go aft and tell him so if you like,’ says I.
“‘No, Joey,’ says he, ‘I’m not the man to tell tales upon a shipmate; nor there ain’t nobody else in the fo’c’s’le as’ll do such a dirty trick. But what’s come over ye, man? You’re that changed as your own mother wouldn’t know ye. I’m surprised at you,’ he says—‘a man that used to be such a tremenjous favourite with the skipper and the rest of ’em aft. What’s the meanin’ of it all?’
“‘Look here, Bill Rogers,’ says I, turnin’ upon him as savage as you please, ‘just you drop that—d’ye hear? I gets hectorin’ and hazin’ enough from the quarter-deck; I won’t have none of it from you, nor from any other man what’s in this ship’s fo’c’s’le; so now I hopes you understand,’ I says.
“‘All right, mate,’ he says; ‘you needn’t lose your temper with me; there’s no occasion for it. Besides, I’m a short-tempered man myself, and if it comes to—but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t want to quarrel with you, Joe; I’d a deal rather we was all fast friends in the fo’c’s’le. We foremast men ought to stick to one another, and back one another up; don’t you think so?’