“‘I won’t care a squid,’ thinks I, ‘for the why nor the wherefore o’ nothin’!’
“‘N neither I did.”
The skipper of the Good Samaritan yawned. “Isn’t they nothin’ about fish in this here yarn?” he asked.
“Nor tradin’,” snapped Tumm.
“Nothin’ about love?”
“Botch never knowed about love.”
“If you’ll ’scuse me,” said the skipper, “I’ll turn in. I got enough.”
But the clammy, red-eyed lad from the Cove o’ First Cousins hitched closer to the table, and put his chin in his hands. He was now in a shower of yellow light from the forecastle lamp. His nostrils were working; his eyes were wide and restless and hot. He had bitten at a chapped underlip until the blood came.
“About that will be” he whispered, timidly. “Did Botch never say—where?”
“You better turn in,” Tumm answered.