He plainly did
not understand the point of view.
"Ah'm English!" he expostulated. "Lissen he-ah, Ah'm English! Damwell
English!"
"All right; let's see you swim, English!" jeered the cutter's captain,
and the pilot took the water with a splash.
"Ah su-ah am English!" he vowed, as he swam for the shore, and he
stood by the sea's edge repeating his assertion with a leathery pair
of lungs until the cutter had rowed out of ear-shot.
"English, is he?" said Joe Byng to Curley Crothers in the fo'castle,
not twenty minutes later. "I'd show him, if I had him in here for
twenty minutes!"
"That fellow's interested me," said Crothers. "He's got me thinking.
I vote we investigate him."
"How?"
"Ashore, fathead."
"There'll be no shore leave."
"No? You left off being wet nurse to the dawg?" "I brush him, mornin's;
if that's what you mean."
"Is he fit?"
"Fit to fight a bumboat full o' pilots!"
"Could he be sick for an hour?"
"Might be did."
"Tomorrow?"
"Morning?"
"At about two bells?"
"It could be done.
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