The bushy brows contracted. The man looked away, removed his pipe, spat reflectively and then faced Ned again.
"I don't know nuthin' about nobody but you," he said, in the same odd way, and then he returned to his previous question.
"You don't recklect nuthin' more'n what you told me?"
"That is absolutely all," rejoined Ned, puzzled by the man's insistence on this one question.
"Well, then it weren't me as run you down. I don't want no claim for damages on the Twin Sisters."
"You won't have any, so far as I'm concerned," said Ned, a light beginning to dawn upon him; "but tell me how you came to pick me up?"
"I'll tell you the way of it, no deception and no lies," said the bushy-browed man. "Cap'n Lemuel Briggs ain't the man to lie. Look at me. Do I look like a man who would inwent of malice aforethought a faberrycation?"
"You don't," replied Ned, inwardly thinking that Captain Briggs did not to any vast extent measure up to his description of himself.
"Very well, then, matey, you shall have the truth on it," said Captain Briggs, with a fine open air. "There ain't a man from here plumb to the Pearly Gates that could ever accuse me of ex-er-ager-ation.
"Arter we—that is, arter we seen that other schooner run yer down, I puts my wheel hard over. Then I sends a man up in the bow to look out fer anyone that he could save, me being one of the most humane skippers that ever used a handspike on a frisky deckhand. He climbs down into the bobstay riggin' and the first thing he catches sight of is you, right under the bow. He grabs you and we gets you on deck and puts you to bed, and now here you are up again, bright and spry, and ready to pay liberal for yer rescue, I hopes."