human
I don't know what Hazard and Green are about --called out Roswell Gardiner to his owner, the first being on the quarter-deck of the Sea Lion, and the last on the wharf, while Watson was busy in the main-rigging;
gpt
I'm a poor scholar, captain Gar'ner, returned the cunning mariner,
human
Ay, ay; you are a prudent fellow, and I like you all the better for it. But you have had leisure, and a plenty of it too, to make up your mind. You must know the schooner from her keel up by this time, and ought to be able to say now that you are willing to take luck's chances in her.
gpt
Ay, ay, sir; that's all true enough, so far as the craft is concerned. If this was a West India v'y'ge, I wouldn't stand a minute about signing the articles; nor should I make much question if the craft was large enough for a common whalin' v'y'ge; but, sealin' is a different business, and one onprofitable hand may make many an onprofitable lay.
human
All this is true enough; but we do not intend to take any unprofitable hands, or to have any unprofitable lays, You know me--
gpt
Oh! if all was like _you_, captain Gar'ner, I wouldn't stand even to wipe the pen. _Your_ repitation was made in the southward, and no man can dispute your skill.
human
Well, both mates are old hands at the business, and we intend that all the 'ables' shall be as good men as you are yourself.
gpt
It _needs_ good men, sir, to be operatin' among some of them sea-elephants! Sea-dogs; for sea-dogs is my sayin'. They tell of seals getting scurce; but I say, it's all in knowin' the business--'There's young captain Gar'ner,' says I, 'that's fittin' out a schooner for some onknown part of the world,' says I, 'maybe for the South Pole, for-ti-know, or for some sich out-of-the-way hole; now he'll come back _full_, or I'm no judge o' the business,' says I.
human
Well, if this is your way of thinking, you have only to clap your name to the articles, and take your lay.
gpt
Ay, ay, sir; when I've seed my shipmates. There isn't the business under the sun that so much needs that every man should be true, as the sea-elephant trade. Smaller animals may be got along with, with a narvous crew, perhaps; but when it comes to the raal old bulls, or bull-dogs, as a body might better call 'em, give me stout hearts, as well as stout hands.
human
Yes, sir, _that's_ sometimes skeary work, too; though I don't think so much of a whale as I do of a sea-elephant, or of a sea-lion. 'Let me know my shipmates,' say I, 'on a sealin' expedition.'
gpt
Captain Gar'ner, said the deacon, who necessarily overheard this discourse,
human
I'm willing to come to tarms this minute, returned Watson, as boldly as if he were perfectly sincere;