"Yas, Massa Bluefish, who was it says dat?" demanded Snollygoster, with an incredulous look on his ebony face.
"Why, the sword-fish, yer ignorant lubbers! Doesn't yer know that they talk like lawyers when they git inter a scrape? I knowed a feller what heerd one of 'em sing the Star Spangled Banner fit to kill.
"Well, as I was a-sayin', says he ter me, 'What air you goin' ter do?'
"'Ter saw yer loose from the ship,' I corresponded.
"'All right,' says he," only I'm afeard it'll hurt some.'
"'I shouldn't wonder if it do,' says I; and with that I grabs his nozzle an' begins to saw like sixty.
"The way that poor devil hollered and snorted and flopped was a caution to seafarin' men. The men above water swore it sounded like ninety-three earthquakes piled on to a bu'stin' big volcano, an' I reckon it did. But I kept on sawin' and sawin', till at last the varmint dropped off, while the sea for 'bout ten miles round the ship became perfectly crimson with his blood. He made a big bite at me, but I ducked about like a porpoise, and succeeded in reachin' the deck without a scratch.
"The varmint was bent on vengeance, and made his appearance with his mouth wide open—big enough to have swallered a seventy-four, without so much as a toothache. But we fired a broadside of shrapnel and red-hot shot down his throat, an' he went off, waggin' his tail as if he didn't like it.
"Well, yer see, the blood all ran out of the yaller mast, and left it hard and dry. So I jist had a set of spars and sails rigged on to the thing, an' we arrove into Southampton with four masts."
Bluefish knocked the ashes out of his pipe, from which we judged that his yarn was brought to a close.