‘Wind or thunder?’ answered Crimp with a dull, indifferent look; ‘well, ’tain’t tufted enough for thunder, but there’ll be a breeze, I allow, behind this here swell.’ ‘Are we rising the chap ahead?’ ‘Not noticeably. She’ll have to shift her hellum for us for that to happen at this pace,’ sending an askew glance over the side. I was leaving him. ‘Heard any more woices?’ he asked. ‘No, have you?’ ‘No, and don’t want to. It’s been a puzzling me, though,’ he exclaimed, mumbling over a quid the juice of which had stained the corners of his mouth into so sour a sneer that no artist could have painted it better. ‘Tell’ee what it is. I’m a-going to believe in ghosts.’ ‘You can’t do better,’ said I; ‘get hold of a ghost and it will explain everything for you.’ ‘Well, ’taint a childish notion anyhow. There’s first class folks as believes in sperrits. What’s a ghost like? Ne’er a man as I’ve asked forrads knows saving the mute, who describes it as a houtline.’ ‘What’s inside his outline?’ I asked. ‘Why, that there Muffin can’t get further than that. I says to him, how can a houtline speak? Look here, says he, answer me this: suppose ye takes a bottle and sucks out all the air from inside of it, what’s left? A wacuum, says I. And what’s a wacuum? says he. Why, I says, says I, space, ain’t it? I says. And what’s space? says he. Why nothen, I suppose, I says, says I. Then, says he, how can nothen exist? And yet, says he, it do exist, because ye can point to the bottle and say there it is. So with a ghost, says he; it’s a houtline with nothen inside it if you like, but it’s as real in its emptiness as the inside of a bottle with nothen in it.’