"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he.
"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years—that's all," said Disko. "Oil-cake sprinkled!"
"With salt, o' course," said Salters, impenitent, reading the farming reports from a week-old New York paper.
"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," the skipper went on.
"Can't see ut that way," said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather cud ha' met a tramp an' over an' above givin' her her reckonin',—over an' above that, I say,—cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on the management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they will not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. Double game an' twice runnin'—all to us." Dan kicked Harvey under the table, and Harvey choked in his cup.
"Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat plastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore I spoke."
"An' right there," said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and etiquette—"right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him to stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be anyways—what it shouldn't."
"Dunno but that's so," said Disko, who saw his way to an honourable retreat from a fit of the dignities.
"Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, "you bein' skipper here; an' I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint—not from any leadin' or conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two blame boys of aours."
"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd done? Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the show fer a half-share in a halibutter," Dan whispered.