“I don’t know,” he continued, after a bit, wiping his eyes, and then fixing his dismal and malignant squint upon me, “whether on the whole we should ha’ done better by dropping him overboard. The brig was as deep as pretty nigh twice her tonnage in coal could make her; she was a wet boat at any time; but now she tumbled about as if she had made up her mind to drown herself. I reckon she knew she had a bailiff aboard. Every dip forrards threw the water over her head in oceans; she’d roll to wind’ard almost as heavily as to leeward, so that the decks was all awash, and I was looking and hoping all the time to see the bailiff fetch away. But there was enough law left in him to keep him holding on. I was standing to wind’ard of the house—the skipper being aft agin the wheel—when Mr. Bailiff comes staggering round, his breeches clinging to his legs like wet brown paper, and his shoes full o’ water.
“‘Hallo, shipmate!’ I sings out, seeing him making for the cabin door, ‘where are you bound to? Aren’t you happy where you are?’
“‘I’m going to lie down on one of the lockers,’ says he. ‘I feel half froze, and I shall be sick presently.’
“‘You may be half froze and sick too,’ says I, ‘but smother me, Mr. Bailiff, if you shall use the cabin.’
“‘Not use the cabin?’ says he, gaping at me, and talking as if there was something in his swaller; ‘d’ye mean to keep me on deck all night?’
“‘Don’t ask no questions,’ says I. ‘You’re here by French leave. Nobody wants you. If I had my way you’d be towing astern, with your neck in a bowline; and if all the rest o’ your tribe and the blooming ’tornies you sarve were tailed on in your wake, I’d be willing to woyage round the world, and never grumble if we took years in reaching home.’
“I was in a passion, which rose my woice, and the skipper, hearing me, comes over.
“‘Hallo, bailiff!’ says he, cheerfully; ‘not drowned yet, my lad? What d’ye think o’ the weather?’
“‘Captain,’ says the man, ‘you’ve carried me away by force. D’ye mean to freeze me to death by keeping me on deck all night? Your mate here says I’m not to use the cabin.’
“‘Why should he use it, capt’n?’ says I. ‘Could a sailor man sit with the likes of him? I’ve messed afore now with Chaneymen; I’ve slept along with Peruvian beachcombers when the air’s been that thick with the smell of onions ye might have leant agin it; but ye may boil me, skipper,’ says I, ‘if ever I occupied a cabin along with a bailiff afore, and if he’s to share that crib along with us, I’ll sleep forrards.’