human
No, Pickle, he cried,
gpt
I won't have that. You seem to make better friends with the cook than with anybody.
human
Oh, uncle, replied the boy,
gpt
Never mind, Pickle, said Uncle Paul good-humouredly.
human
Go on eating, and grow.
gpt
No, sir, said Joe Cross,
human
Oh, he must,
gpt
There aren't no must in it, sir. He can't. He might find it out perhaps if he tried to get into a pair of boy's trousers--yours, for instance; but then that aren't likely, because you won't give him the chance, and what's more, he wouldn't want to. You try him some day about being too fat, and you see if he don't stare at you.
human
He will, Joe, when I'm so rude to him. But come now, you are shuffling. Why is it that you laugh at me?
gpt
Well, sir, because I like you, for one thing, and another is because you are such an unreasonable chap.
human
I? Unreasonable? cried Rodd hotly.
gpt
That I'm sure I'm not!
human
Why, sir, wasn't you put out because your uncle and the old man wouldn't sail right into the Mediterranean Sea?
gpt
Well, there was nothing unreasonable in that. I am sure it would have been very interesting.
human
Not it, sir. I've been there over and over again, and it always seemed to me just like any other sea, only a bit rougher sometimes, and it aren't got hardly any tide. You wait till we get a little further on, and you'll find plenty to make you open you eyes wider than ever you opened them before. I don't know a finer place for seeing wonders of the deep than along where we are going, as you say we are to, right along the West Coast of Afriky. Why, you might begin fishing and dredging directly after we had put in at Mogador, where the fish are wonderful, and you can't drop in a line without hauling something out.
gpt
That's good, cried Rodd eagerly;
human
Ah, well, there's plenty of them too, sir--all sorts, and the farther you gets into warmer water the more there are.
gpt
What sort?
human
All sorts, and the nearer you are to land the more you get. Then I suppose some time we shall come upon that there Sargassey Sea.
gpt
Where's that?
human
Right away down south, sir. Let's see, if I remember right we falls in with that soon after you pass the islands.
gpt
What islands?
human
Let's see; I ought to know, sir. The fust that comes near Europe is the Azores; then farther south there's that there island where all the sick people goes, Madeiry; then there's the Canaries, where the birds come from; only they aren't all yaller like people keeps in their cages. Most I seed there was green, and put me in mind of them little chaps as we have at home with the yaller heads--you know, sir; them as cries, `A little bit of bread and no cheese.' And you see them up country, a-twittering among the hedges.
gpt
Yes, I know, said Rodd sharply;
human
Ah! I'm thinking it was after that we come to that sea, only I aren't quite sure, sir. But if I recollect right, they say it shifts about according to what sort of weather we have.
gpt
Well, so does every sea, cried Rodd,
human
Ah, but they don't run high here, sir. You see, the Sargassey Sea aren't like other seas, and I suppose it's only part of the Atlantic after all. It's all smooth like because as far as you can see it's all like one great bed of floating seaweed, so thick that you can hardly sail through it at times, and if you go out into it in a boat it's as much as you can do to dip your oars.
gpt
Have you been out amongst it then?
human
Yes, sir, more'n once. It was when I was in the _Prince George_ off the West Coast of Africa, and we had got a surgeon on board there, and him and our second lieutenant had both got it badly.
gpt
What, West African fever?
human
No, no, sir; same as your uncle's got--looking after strange things as lives in the sea. I was one of the crew of the second cutter then, and in the beautiful calm weather we used to take the doctor and the second luff out in this Sargassey Sea, which used to look sometimes as if we were floating about in green fields.
gpt
Oh, you mean the Sargasso Sea! cried Rodd.
human
Nay, I don't, sir; I means the Sargassey Sea.
gpt
Well, that's the same thing, only you spell it differently,
human
Oh no, sir; that I don't. That's a thing as I never pretended to do. I can take my spell at the pump or at any other job; but what you call spelling was never in my way.
gpt
But you mean the same thing, cried Rodd.
human
It isn't Sar-gass-ey; it's Sar-gass-o.
gpt
Ho! Sar-gass-ho, is it, sir?
human
Yes, of course.
gpt
All right, sir; I'm willing. But my one was all alive with little things, little fish and slugs and snails of all kinds of rum sorts; and our second luff used to make us haul in great lengths of the seaweed as was floating about, and then help him to pick 'em out into bottles till they were quite full, and looking just as if they was pickles same as you see in the grocers' shops in Plymouth town.
human
Well, the same as you saw uncle and me do that day during the calm?
gpt
Yes, sir, just like that, only yours as you did were small shop and ours was like big warehouse, though I don't think our doctor did much good with them, because so many of them used to go bad, and our cook and his mate used to have to throw no end away and wash the bottles.
human
Ah, ours won't go bad, said Rodd confidently.
gpt
My uncle will preserve them differently to that.
human
Oh, yes, I suppose so, sir. You see, we've all come out this time ready for the job; our officers on the _Prince George_ only did their bit just for a day or two's holiday like, and our job was to look after the mounseers' cruisers, not to catch tittlebats and winkles, and it wasn't so very long after that we was at it hammer and tongs with a big French frigate, making work for the doctor of a precious different kind, and for our ship's carpenters too. Different sort of nat'ral history that was, sir, I can tell you, for we lost nineteen of our men and had a lot wounded; but we took the frigate, and carried her safe into Portsmouth Harbour.
gpt
Ah! cried Rodd softly, as his eyes flashed at the thoughts of the deeds of naval daring carried out by our men-of-war.
human
I wish I'd been there!
gpt
You do, sir? said Joe.
human
Mean it?
gpt
Mean it? Of course! There, don't look at me like that. I wasn't thinking of being a man, but a reefer--one of those middies that we used to see at Plymouth.
human
Ah, it's all very fine, sir, said Joe, shaking his head,
gpt
Why, Joe, cried Rodd, almost maliciously,
human
Afraid, sir? said the man, quietly and thoughtfully.
gpt
No, sir. No, sir; I never felt afraid, and I never knowed one of my messmates as said he was.
human
Oh no, of course they wouldn't say so,
gpt
No, sir, that's right. But I aren't bragging, sir. I've been in several engagements like that, and my messmates always seemed to feel just as I did. You see, they'd got it to do, sir, and we always felt that it was only mounseers that we'd got to beat and captur' their ship; and then as soon as we had begun, whether we was crews of guns, stripped and firing away, or answering the orders to board, why, then we never had time to feel afraid.
human
What, not when you saw your messmates shot down beside you?
gpt
My word, no, sir! cried Joe, laughing.
human
We none of us felt afraid then; it only made us feel wild and want to sarve the other side out. No, sir, continued the bluff fallow, in a quiet matter-of-fact way, and his voice utterly free of vaunt,
gpt
I can't say I do see,
human
No, sir, because you haven't been drilled; but it's like this 'ere. One man's one man, and a hundred men's a hundred men--no, stop; that aren't quite what I mean. It aren't in my way, Mr Rodd, sir; I never was a beggar to argue. The fat Bun can easily beat me at that. This 'ere's what I mean. One man's one man, and a hundred men's a hundred one men. That's if they aren't drilled and trained like sailors or soldiers; but if they are trained, you see each one man feels as if he has got a hundred men with him all working together, and con-se-quently, sir, every chap aboard feels as if he's as strong as a hundred men. Now don't you see, sir?
gpt
Well, yes, said Rodd quietly;
human
I think I begin to see what you mean.
gpt
Why, of course you do, sir. Say it's heaving a boat aboard, and it takes twenty men to do it. Why, if they go and try one at a time, where are you? But if you all go and take hold together, and your officer says to you, `Now, my lads, with a will, all together! Heave ho!' why then, up she comes. Well now, I do call that rum! Look at that, sir. If here aren't the old man, just as if he had heard what we was talking about, passing the word for gun drill, or else a bit of knicketty knock with the cutlasses and pikes!