"My bird!"
Then he jumped, and grabbed my arm just as it was disappearing.
"Let go that bird," he howled, twisting my arm.
I let the bird go, and kept silent in spite of the pain, hoping that he would let me go without learning who I was. He reached for a rope and spliced my arm to the brass handle of the drawer. Nauke reached into my pants pocket and took out the stuffing to save it from destruction during the coming licking.
The captain came out.
"Oh, it's you, Phelax. You don't like ducks, do you? But you like the rope's end."
With that, he gave me an awful beating with a rope's end. I howled, by Joe.
Limping and sore, I went forward to get my share of the stuffing from Nauke. He had eaten it all. That made me so angry that, in spite of my soreness, I passed a good share of my licking on to him. Smutje shook his head and remarked sadly that the society of thieves had corrupted the only honest fellow aboard.
We took on a supply of sausages made out of pemmican that were to be sewn up in canvas and whitewashed so they would keep. For this work younger seamen are used, they being considered more honest and unspoiled than the older hands. I was not in line for the job. However, we slipped appropriate advice to the yeomen on the sly. Broomsticks were cut up in lengths a trifle shorter than the sausages. The two ends of sausages were cut off and spliced to the ends of the pieces of broomstick. The dummies were then tied up in sail cloth in such a way that the ends could be inspected. After this they were whitewashed. When the captain carefully counted the one hundred and sixty sausages and inspected the unmistakable sausage ends of each one, he said: "Thank God, boys, that you are still honest."
Later on he stormed and raged when he had to revise this good opinion.