It was marvellous to observe how much he got and how little it seemed to hurt him. He was knocked down once a day and twice on Sundays. Even when he got a chance to be first up aloft he never seemed to know it. The only way he had of getting down first was to fall. And once when he did so without seriously damaging himself Bragg hammered him for doing it.
"What you're after is to be laid up; I see that," said Bragg. "But let me catch you at it."
And Hans shook his head under Bragg's heavy hand till he forgot he had bruises on him the size of a soup-plate.
"Dutchy's a fair wonder," said the crowd, rejoicing in their own freedom; "he's taking the whack of all us and never turns a hair. We'll have to get up a subscription for him. Ain't he just tough? Say, Dutchy, suppose you and Bragg or you and the old man was to have a fair set-to, d'ye think you could down either of 'em?"
"Ya," said Hans from Abo very soberly, "neider of 'em can't hurt me mooch."
"He's made of teak," said the admiring crowd. "Now, there ain't one of us wouldn't be bunged up if we'd been hit about like him, and he ain't got a mark."
"It reminds me of a Chinky I fo't once," said one of the men. "I knocked him down seven times, and then two other chaps chucked him out. And next morning he was as cheerful as you please and never fazed; not a mark to him. I give him ten cents for a drink to let me look at him close. Dutchy's just such another, he's a real tough, so he is."
Hans's marvellous capacity for being hammered was soon noted aft.
"Why don't you take a pillow to him?" said Noyes, with a sneer. "To see you hit him, Bragg, makes me tired, and you used to be a hard man, too."
The mate was injured in his tenderest point.