“Eh?” exclaimed Scroggles.
“Were the other men as eager for the fight as you were?”
“I s’pose they wos; you’d better ax ’em. I dun know.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do, considering the state of mind you appear to have been in at the time. Do you know which part of the whale struck your boat? Was it the head?”
“No; it was the tail.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Ho, yes, quite sartin, for I’ve got a knot on my head this day where the tip of its flukes came down on me.”
“You’re quite sure of that? Might it not have been the part of the fish near the tail, now, that struck you, or the fin just under the tail?”
“No; I’m quite sartin sure it warn’t that.”
“How are you so sure it wasn’t that?”