"I aint afraid he'll do me anything," said the sea-lawyer, Burley, his voice coming with a sepulchral sound from the depths of the bunk, where he was already stretched at full length. "I don't allow any live man to do me anything. I've been in all sorts of ships, men-of-war, merchantmen, and—well, I wont say what else. But I always stood up for my rights."
"That's all well enough, you know," replied the negro, speaking with less assumption of superiority now that he was addressing a man of experience. "That's all well enough to stand up, if all hands would hang together standin' up"—(quite unconscious of the bull, of course). "But they wont, 'cause they don't know their duty. Now, you see, you and me's got to do 'bout all the duty here—"
"What you talk about?" said one of the two Ghees, a swarthy, big-whiskered fellow, with that restless eye so common among his countrymen. "What you talk about—do all dutee? I no want you do my work. S'pose you do your own work, me all e' same."
"Ah, well! I don't mean nothin' 'bout you and Antone, of course!" said Jeff, turning nearly white at the interruptions. "I s'pose you two can do your duty well enough. What I mean to say is," thus ingeniously shifting his ground, "there'll be only two of us in each watch to do all the duty. 'The doctor' he don't count nobody, 'cause he don't stand watch, and he's got enough to do to look after his galley. Now, when I first went a whaling, they used to have some men aboard of a ship; but now-a days they send them out filled with a lot of children. I expect if I go two or three voyages more, I'll see 'em bring their mothers out with 'em. I don't know, for my part, what they ship such spindle-legged boys for!"
"I do!" shouted the clock-setter, from the recesses of the bunk. "Because they can do just what they like with 'em, and they don't know their rights. If they were to ship a whole crew of old hands that knew their rights and stood up for them, they'd get brought up with a round-turn."
"R-r-r-ights!" muttered Manoel the Portuguese. "What that you talk 'bout r-r-rights? What for you begin gr-r-owl now, no got ship out sea yet? Time enough gr-r-owl, s'pose old man no do r-r-right by-'m-by."
"But it's always well enough to have these things understood in the beginning," insisted Burley. "I want a man to use me like a man, and I mean he shall, too. I don't know what you Dagos mean to do, but I'll have my rights."
"R-r-rights!" echoed Manoel, with infinite contempt. "All 'e time r-r-rights!"
"I tink s'pose have row 'board dis ship—you no do more's 'nother mans," said the little Portuguese, Antone, with that quick perception of character, which, in many of his class, seems to supply the place of both theoretical knowledge and worldly experience.
"Well, you'll see," returned the sea-lawyer. "Time will show. I sha'n't ask any Dago to tell me what to do."