“Tenny’s son, av coorse,” replied Jerry; “but he ain’t incomprehensible, Jack; he’s only too daip for a man of or’nary intellick. His thoughts is so awful profound sometimes that the longest deep-sea lead line as ever was spun can’t reach the bottom of ’em. It’s only such oncommon philosophers as Dick Moy there, or a boardin’-school miss (for extremes meet, you know, Jack), that can rightly make him out.”
“Wot’s that you’re sayin’ about Dick Moy?” inquired that worthy, who had just joined the group at the windlass.
“He said you was a philosopher,” answered Shales. “You’re another,” growled Dick, bluntly, to MacGowl.
“Faix, that’s true,” replied Jerry; “there’s two philosophers aboord of this here light, an’ the luminous power of our united intellicks is so strong that I’ve had it in my mind more than wance to suggest that if they wos to hoist you and me to the masthead together, the Gull would git on first-rate without any lantern at all.”
“Not a bad notion that,” said Jack Shales. “I’ll mention it to the superintendent to-morrow, when the tender comes alongside. P’raps he’ll report you to the Trinity House as being willin’ to serve in that way without pay, for the sake of economy.”
“No, not for economy, mate,” objected Dick Moy. “We can’t afford to do dooty as lights without increased pay. Just think of the intellektooal force required for to keep the lights agoin’ night after night.”
“Ay, and the amount of the doctor’s bill,” broke in MacGowl, “for curin’ the extra cowlds caught at the mast-head in thick weather.”
“But we wouldn’t go up in thick weather, stoopid,” said Moy,—“wot ud be the use? Ain’t the gong enough at sich times?”
“Och, to be sure. Didn’t I misremember that? What a thing it is to be ready-witted, now! And since we are makin’ sich radical changes in the floating-light system, what would ye say, boys, to advise the Boord to use the head of Jack Shales instead of a gong? It would sound splendiferous, for there ain’t no more in it than an empty cask. The last gong they sint us down was cracked, you know, so I fancy that’s considered the right sort; and if so, Jack’s head is cracked enough in all conscience.”
“I suppose, Jerry,” said Shales, “if my head was appointed gong, you’d like that your fist should git the situation of drumstick.”