The other man nodded, and Dan, without any further parley, crossed over to the sleepers and shook them roughly.
“Eh! wha’s matter?” inquired the sleepers plaintively.
“Git up,” said Dan impressively, “I want to speak to you. Something important.”
With sundry growls the men complied, and, thrusting their legs out of their bunks, rolled on to the locker, and sat crossly waiting for information.
“I want to do a pore chap a good turn,” said Dan, watching them narrowly out of his little black eyes, “an’ I want you to help me; an’ the boy too. It’s never too young to do good to your fellow-creatures, Billy.”
“I know it ain’t,” said Billy, taking this as permission to join the group; “I helped a drunken man home once when I was only ten years old, an’ when I was only—”
The speaker stopped, not because he had come to the end of his remarks, but because one of the seamen had passed his arm around his neck and was choking him.
“Go on,” said the man calmly; “I’ve got him. Spit it out, Dan, and none of your sermonising.”
“Well, it’s like this, Joe,” said the old man; “here’s a pore chap, a young sojer from the depot here, an’ he’s cut an’ run. He’s been in hiding in a cottage up the road two days, and he wants to git to London, and git honest work and employment, not shooting, an’ stabbing, an’ bayoneting—”
“Stow it,” said Joe impatiently.