"Right it is, sir. But what a fuss for a man to make about a bit o' hair. He never howls about having his head shaved." "No," I said; "but you see he would have given anything sooner than have his tail touched." "And most got drownded, sir. Well, that all come o' the lads skylarking. If ever I'm skipper of a ship, no skylarking then. I s'pose there'll be a reglar hooroar in the morning, and Mr Reardon wanting to know who started the game." "And you'll tell him, Tom?" I said. "O' course, sir," he replied, with a solemn wink. "I'm just the man to go and split upon my messmates." "But you'll be punished if you don't tell. You can't get out of it, because it's known that you were teasing him; and it wouldn't be fair for you to be punished and for them to escape." "No, sir, it wouldn't; but sech is life. Wrong chap generally gets the kick as some one else ought to have ketched, but 'tarn't your fault, and it's no use to grumble." "But it is your fault, if you know who were the offenders and will not tell." "Is it? Humph! S'pose it is, sir. You're right. That's where you gents as is scholards gets over the like of me. I see it now; you are right, sir. What a wonderful head you've got for arguing, sewerly!" "Then you'll tell Mr Reardon in the morning?" "I didn't say as I would, sir." "No; but you will?" "No, sir, but I won't!" he said emphatically. "But I say, sir, do you think if I was to go overboard, and then hitch myself on to the rudder-chains till I was took aboard, the doctor'd give me a dose of that same physic as he give him?" "Very likely, Tom," I said. "But you'd rather be without, wouldn't you?" He smiled. "But it was physic?" "Oh yes, sir, it was physic. But then you see there's physic as he takes out of one of his little bottles with stoppers, and there's physic as he makes out of the ship's rum, hot with sugar. I could take a dose now easy, and it would do me good." "Nonsense!" I said, after a glance at the sleeping Chinaman. "But I say, Jecks, how did he manage?" "Oh, easy enough, sir. Tide would suck him right along the side, and he'd catch the chains." "But how did he get in such a tangle?" "Tied hisself on, sir, with a handkerchy round his left arm, to the chain; and then Dick Spurling says he twissened his tow-chang, as he called it, round and round, and tucked the canister in at the neck of his frock and buttoned it. Dick had no end of a job, as you know, to get him undone." "Yes," I said thoughtfully, "I know that; but a man couldn't hang by his hair." Tom Jecks laughed softly. "Oh yes, he could, sir. There's no knowing how little a man can hang by when he's obliged. Why, ain't you heard how we men hangs on to the yards when we're aloft?" "Oh yes, I've heard," I said; "by your eyelids." "That's it, sir," he said, with a dry grin; "and that's harder than a man hanging on by his hair."