‘I swear by my dead father, I am, then,’ said I, confronting him and speaking in deep tones which trembled with passion, enthusiasm, and resolution.
‘You’ll get no clothes to deceive the eye with that figure of yours,’ said he.
‘If that’s the sole objection, come here to-morrow, Will.’
‘The sole objection!’ he cried. ‘One of a score, you mean. What do you know about the sea? Oh, yes, you can give the names of things; but call yourself a stowaway, and tell me where you’re going to hide?’
‘You shall tell me,’ said I, sitting close beside him.
He ran his eyes over the room whilst he reflected, and said: ‘Here’s to be a gutted ship; keep that in mind. Down aft ’ud be out of the question; they’d have you out before you warmed the hole you hid in, and you’d be ashore packing along with a constable before the Isle of Dogs was out of sight.’
‘Then it won’t be aft,’ said I.
‘Forward! Why, yes,’ he went on, continuing to run his eyes over the room, in his struggles to realise the inside of his ship. ‘There’s the fore-peak—a big rat-trap, full of coals, spare swabs, broom-handles and oil-cans. Could you hide down there?’
‘Yes.’
‘What! In blackness? Midnight with a dense fog isn’t in it for blackness alongside the fore-peak with a hatch on.’