"How moonshine?" returned Mr. Bracebit, the carpenter; "she's plain enough to be seen, and they've made her out to be a brig: there can be no moonshine in that, anyhow."
"But I tell you there is moonshine in it," persevered the boatswain, "a complete bag o' moonshine, unless you can diskiver the right bearings and distance o' the thing. I tell you what it is, Mr. Bracebit, I arn't been these many years man and boy in the sarvice——"
"You should say boy and man, old Pipes," exclaimed the mate of the watch as he stopped short in his walk by the veteran's side.
"And why should I say boy and man, instead of man and boy, Mr. Winterbottom?" demanded old Savage in anger.
"Because, according to your own maxim, everything should be done ship-shape," replied the other; "and you was a boy before you was a man."
"He has him there," whispered Jack Sheavehole to his messmate Bob. "I'm bless'd if that arn't plain-sailing, anyhow!"
"Ship-shape do you call it?" answered the boatswain wrathfully.
"Ay, ay, Muster Winterbottom, mayhap it may be according to your calculations of the jometry of the thing. It's nothing new now-a-days to see the boy put forud afore the man;" and he laid strong emphasis on the latter words.
"There he hit him again, Jack," observed Bob Martingal in a whisper; "and I'm blowed if there arn't Gospel truth in that, anyhow!"