"Ah, an' wot about our black faces?" ses Bill, still in the same sneering, ungrateful sort o' voice.
"That can be got over," ses Joe.
"'Ow?" ses Bill and Bob together.
"Ship as nigger-cooks," ses Joe, slapping his knee and looking round triumphant.
It's no good trying to do some people a kindness. Joe was perfectly sincere, and nobody could say but wot it wasn't a good idea, but o' course Mr. Bill Cousins must consider hisself insulted, and I can only suppose that the trouble he'd gone through 'ad affected his brain. Likewise Bob Pullins.
Anyway, that's the only excuse I can make for 'em. To cut a long story short, nobody 'ad any more breakfast, and no time to do anything until them two men was scrouged up in a corner an' 'eld there unable to move.
"I'd never 'ave done 'em," ses the carpenter, arter it was all over, "if I'd known they was goin' to carry on like this. They wanted to be done."
"The mate'll half murder 'em," ses Ted Hill.
"He'll 'ave 'em sent to gaol, that's wot he'll do," ses Smith. "It's a serious matter to go ashore and commit assault and battery on the mate."
"You're all in it," ses the voice o' Bill from the floor. "I'm going to make a clean breast of it. Joe Smith put us up to it, the carpenter blacked us, and the others encouraged us."