I won't git nothin' fur savin' my
vessel, coz that's my business, but you wasn't cap'n o' yourn,
an' took charge of her a-purpose to save her, which is another
thing.'
"I wasn't at all sure that I didn't take charge of the
Mary Auguster to save myself an' not the vessel, but I didn't
mention that, an' asked the cap'n how he expected to live all
this time.
"`Oh, we kin git at your stores easy enough,' says he, when
the water's pumped out.' `They'll be mostly sp'iled,' says I.
`That don't matter' says he. `Men'll eat anything when they
can't git nothin' else.' An' with that he left me to think it
over.
"I must say, young man, an' you kin b'lieve me if you know
anything about sech things, that the idee of a pile of money was
mighty temptin' to a feller like me, who had a girl at home ready
to marry him, and who would like nothin' better'n to have a
little house of his own, an' a little vessel of his own, an' give
up the other side of the world altogether. But while I was goin'
over all this in my mind, an' wonderin' if the cap'n ever could
git us into port, along comes Andy Boyle, an' sits down beside
me. `It drives me pretty nigh crazy,' says he, `to think that
to-morrer's Christmas, an' we've got to feed on that sloppy stuff
we fished out of our stores, an' not much of it, nuther, while
there's all that roast turkey an' plum-puddin' an' mince-pie a-
floatin' out there just afore our eyes, an' we can't have none of
it.' `You hadn't oughter think so much about eatin', Andy,' says
I,`but if I was talkin' about them things I wouldn't leave out
canned peaches.
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