He jammed his sou’wester hard down, and heroically waved away the remainder of the pie. “No, no. First thing I know I’ll be having dyspepsia. I never had it yet, but I might,” and then heaved himself up the companionway, humming, as he went, one of his old favorites:
“Oh, the ’Liza Jane and the Maria Louise
Sailed a race one day for a peck of peas.
You’d hardly believe the way them two
Carried sail that day––they fairly flew.
People ashore they said, ‘Gee whiz!
The ’Liza Jane the fastest is.’“
We could hear him scrambling, still humming, over the barrels on deck. He halted long enough by the rail to say, “How is it, boys?” to the watch on deck, and then swung himself up the rigging. Once aloft he had his work cut out, with hours of strain on brain and nerve. But Clancy never minded––he never minded anything so far as we could make out.