"Am dat all true, Massa Bluefish?" asked the innocent giant of a snollygoster.
"Every word on it," was the solemn rejoinder. "It was a thing as occurred in my actual experience."
Singular to relate, some of us had our doubts on this subject.
It was now bedtime for those who were not on duty, and we prepared to turn in.
I was up to seamen's tricks, and examined the stays of my hammock carefully before getting into it. I found them firm, and was about to turn in for a long snooze, when a crash in another corner of the forecastle told me that some one had had the trick played on him, at least.
The dim light of the lantern revealed the state of the case. Dicky Drake's hammock-strings had been all but severed, and he, upon turning in, had come down on the floor with a hard head-bump.
"Who did that? Where is he? Show him to me!" exclaimed the verdant youth, in a rage, plucking out his jack-knife and running through the laughing crew like a wild man.
"It was a mighty mean thing!" Tony Trybrace opined, roaring with laughter.
"Dat's so. I wonder who did it?" Snollygoster asked.