“Wot I say is one thing; wot you say is another—so it is. I dun know w’ich is right, or w’ich is wrong—no more do you. P’raps you is, p’raps I is; anywise we can’t both on us be right or both on us be wrong—that’s a comfort, if it’s nothin’ else. Wot you say is—that it’s morally imposs’ble for a crew sich as us to travel over two thousand miles of ocean on three casks o’ biscuit and a barrel o’ salt junk. Wot I say is—that we can, an’, moreover, that morals has nothin’ to do with it wotsomediver. Now, wot then?”

 

Tim Rokens paused and looked at Gurney, to whom his remarks were addressed, as if he expected an answer. That rotund little seaman did not, however, appear to be thoroughly prepared to reply to “wot then,” for he remained silent, but looked at his comrade as though to say, “I’ll be happy to learn wisdom from your sagacious lips.”

 

“Wot then?” repeated Tim Rokens, assaulting his knee with his clenched fist in a peculiarly emphatic manner; “I’ll tell ye wot then, as you may be right and I may be right, an’ nother on us can be both right or wrong, I say as how that we don’t know nothin’ about it.”

 

Gurney looked as if he did not quite approve of so summary a method of solving such a knotty question, but observing from the expression of Rokens’ countenance that, though he had paused, that philosopher had not yet concluded, he remained silent.

 

“An’, furthermore,” continued Tim, “it’s my opinion—seein’ that we’re both on us in such a state o’ cumblebofubulation, an’ don’t know nothin’—we’d better go an’ ax the cap’en, who does.”

 

“You may save yourselves the trouble,” observed Glynn Proctor, who at that moment came up and sat down on the rocks beside them, with a piece of the salt junk that formed an element in the question at issue, in his hand—

 

“I’ve just heard the captain give his opinion on that subject, and he says that the boat can be got ready in a week or less, and that, with strict economy, the provisions we have will last us long enough to enable us to make the Cape, supposing we have good weather and fair winds. That’s his opinion.”

 

“I told ye so,” said Tim Rokens.

 

“You did nothin’ o’ the sort,” retorted Gurney.

 

“Well, if ye come fur to be oncommon strick in the use o’ your lingo, I did not ’xactly tell ye so, but I thought so, w’ich is all the same.”

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