“Then Botch had a little spell o’ thinkin’.”
Tumm leaned over the forecastle table.
“Now,” said he, forefinger lifted, “accordin’ t’ my lights, it ain’t nice t’ see any man thinkin’: for a real man ain’t got no call t’ think, an’ can’t afford the time on the coast o’ Newf’un’land, where they’s too much fog an’ wind an’ rock t’ ’low it. For me, I’d rather see a man in a ’leptic fit: for fits is more or less natural an’ can’t be helped. But Botch! When Botch thunk—when he got hard at it—’twould give you the shivers. He sort o’drawed away—got into nothin’. They wasn’t no sea nor shore for Botch no more; they wasn’t no earth, no heavens. He got rid o’all that, as though it hindered the work he was at, an’ didn’t matter anyhow. They wasn’t nothin’ left o’things but botch—an’ the nothin’ about un. Botch in nothin’. Accordin’ t’ my lights, ’tis a sinful thing t’do; an’ when I first seed Botch at it, I ’lowed he was lackin’ in religious opinions. ’Twas just as if his soul had pulled down the blinds, an’ locked the front door, an’ gone out for a walk, without leavin’ word when ’twould be home. An’, accordin’ t’ my lights, it ain’t right, nor wise, for a man’s soul t’ do no such thing. A man’s soul ’ain’t got no common-sense; it ’ain’t got no caution, no manners, no nothin’ that it needs in a wicked world like this. When it gets loose, ’t is liable t’ wander far, an’ get lost, an’ miss its supper. Accordin’ t’ my lights, it ought t’ be kep’ in, an’ fed an’ washed regular, an’ put t’ bed at nine o’clock. But Botch! well, there lied his body in the wet, like an unloved child, while his soul went cavortin’ over the Milky Way.
“He come to all of a sudden. ‘Tumm,’ says he, ‘you is.’
“‘Ay,’ says I, ‘Tumm I is. ’Tis the name I was born with.’
“‘You don’t find me,’ says he. ‘I says you is.’
“‘Is what?’
“‘Just—is!’
“With that, I took un. ’Twas all t’ oncet. He was tellin’ me that I was. Well, I is. Damme! ’twasn’t anything I didn’t know if I’d stopped t’ think. But they wasn’t nobody ever called my notice to it afore, an’ I’d been too busy about the fish t’ mind it. So I was sort o’—s’prised. It don’t matter, look you! t’ be; but ’tis mixin’ t’ the mind an’ fearsome t’ stop t’ think about it. An’ it come t’ me all t’ oncet; an’ I was s’prised, an’ I was scared.
“‘Now, Tumm,’ says he, with his finger p’intin’, ‘where was you?’