After a pause, Plum said: "Bring him up and sit in examination on him.
Try him fairly, and convict him."
They opened the hatch and pulled little Sloper off the Thames ballast into daylight. He was exceedingly white, and trembled violently, and cut, indeed, a very pitiful figure as he stood on the quarter-deck of the Tom Bowling, surveyed by her owner and crew. He was a short man and spare, and Tom Tuck grinned as he looked at him.
"I suppose you're aweer," said old Joe, "that in shooting at my flag and wounding her you've degraded the honour of it? Are you aweer of that?"
"You came in my way; I was shooting for my hentertainment," answered
Mr. Sloper.
"You're a retired tailor, ain't ye?" said Joe.
Sloper sulkily answered "Yes."
"Have ye any acquaintance with the laws which are made and purwided for British seamen when it happens that their flag's degraded by the haction of a retired tailor?" said old Joe.
Mr. Sloper, instead of answering, cast a languishing eye at the river banks, which were fast sliding past, and requested to be set ashore.
"It don't answer his purpose to speak to the pint," said Plum.
"Listen, now," said old Joe, shaking his forefinger close into the face of little Sloper. "When a retired tailor degrades the honour of a seaman's flag by a shooting at it and a riddling of it, the law 'as made and purwided sets forth this: that the insulted sailor shall collect his crew and in the presence of all hands pass sentence after giving an impartial hearing to what the culprit may have to say in his defence. Now, you durned little powder-burner, speak up, and own what made you do it, and then I'll pass judgment."