'If I tell Ned, 'e'll do it for sure. 'E's the biggest joker 'ere!'
'Then tell him,' said Silas.
That evening Ned Tidewell and Billy Gribbs acted in a very strange way on board the Battle-Axe. Without any obvious reason they kept on bursting into violent fits of laughter.
'The poor blokes is gone dotty from the 'eat,' said the pitying crowd. 'We've 'eard of such before.'
'Why shouldn't I laugh?' asked Gribbs. 'I'm laughin' because I'm a pore silly sailorman, and my life ain't worth livin'. If I'd died early I'd ha' bin saved a pile o' trouble. I was thinkin' of my father's green fields as I looked over the side this afternoon.'
'Was you, really?' asked the oldest man on board, 'then you take my advice quick and go and ask the skipper for a real good workin' pill of the largest size.'
'Wot for?' asked Gribbs.
'Because you hobvus got a calentoor,' said the old fo'c'sleman. 'And chaps as gets a calentoor jumps overboard. Oh, but that's well known at sea by them as knows anythin'.'
But Gribbs laughed.
'The worst is as it's catchin',' said his adviser anxiously, 'it's fatally catchin'. 'I've 'eard of crews doin' it one hafter the hother till there warn't no one left. In 'eat it was and in calm.'