Just then Bill Green, who had been relieved for a few moments from the wheel, appeared at Danny’s side, and, collaring him with one hand as Danny scrambled up, while with the other he seized the cabin boy’s neckerchief, Bill gave them both a powerful shaking.
“If you two chaps don’t behave yourselves,” he shouted, “I’ll report you both, and I’ll give you a private wallopin’ o’ my own besides. That’s the wust o’ boys—they never knows how to behave theirselves. D’ye see Cap’n Paul Jones and the British cap’n a-maulin’ and a-poundin’ each other? And don’t you know prisoners ought to be treated kind? That’s why the officers sets a example to the men and to the wuthless, triflin’, good-for-nothin’ boys!”
“B—but, Mr. Green,” said Danny, struggling to get his breath in Bill’s brawny grasp, “he said as the commodore were a pirate, and that’s for why I hit him.”
“He did, did he?” snorted Bill, highly incensed, and letting Danny go, while he devoted both hands to the unlucky cabin boy. “Then I wish you’d ’a’ hit him twice as hard; and if it warn’t for them officers over yonder,” he yelled to the Serapis boy, “I’d give you sech a keel haulin’ as nobody but a Dutchman never had afore. You say Cap’n Paul Jones is a pirate, do yer?” Here he lifted the boy completely off his feet, while a well-directed kick emphasized his remarks. “Now, you take that back, or by the almighty Joshua, I’ll heave you overboard!”
The boy, scared out of his life, sputtered:
“I take it back.”
Bill then turned to Danny, and said, excitedly:
“You oughter git some smart money for that ’ere lick he give you, and I’m goin’ to see as the commodore knows about it.”
“But, Mr. Green,” said Danny, slyly, “you said as we was to imitate the cap’ns, and not be maulin’ and poundin’ each other—”
“I didn’t say no sech a thing,” answered Bill, angrily; “I said, as if anybody was to say Cap’n Paul Jones were a pirate you was to knock his eyes down into his shoes, and not to leave a whole bone in his skin. That’s what I said, boy, and you misunderstood me.”