"Very well, Captain Smith," resumed the second mate, "it is nothing to me, sir. I'd as lief they'd be ashore all the time, sir, but before you give Mr. Langley leave, I'd just wish to enter a complaint against him, sir. I shouldn't thought of saying nothin' about it, only to see him coming and asking for liberty so bloody bold, just as if he reckoned he desarved it, makes me feel a leetle riley, sir. He was guilty of using disrespectable language to his superior officer, to me, sir, and upon the quarter-deck, too, sir, d----n him. You see, that night afore last, in his anchor-watch, it was rather warm in my state-room, so I went between decks to walk and cool off a little, and I heard Bill sitting on the booby-hatch and a spoutin' poetry to his-self. Well, I just walks up the ladder, pokes my head through the slide and hails him; but instead of answering me in a proper manner, what does he do but jumps off the hatch and square off in this manner, as if he was agoin' to claw me in the face, and he sings out--'Are you a goose or a gobbler, d----n you?' I didn't want to pick a fuss before the rest of the watch, or by the holy Paul I'd a taught him the difference between his officer and a barn-yard fowl in a series of one lesson--blast his etarnal picter!" "Mr. Langley," said the skipper, "what have you to say for yourself? Such language upon the quarter-deck to your superior officer is very impertinent." "If you'll allow me," replied the accused, "I think I can give a version of the story which will sound a little different. You see, the second mate wears a night-cap, to keep the cockroaches or bugs out of his ears--" "That's a lie," roared Brewster. "I wears it because I've got a catarrh, which I ketched by doing my duty in all weathers, long afore you ever dipped your fingers in pitch, you lazy son of a gun." "Silence!" cried Captain Smith, suppressing a laugh. "Mr. Langley, never mind the night-cap, but go on with your story." "Well," resumed the third mate, "he does wear one, any how, and night before last I sat on the hatch, as he says, reading Shakspeare in the moonlight, and when the second mate's night-capped head rose through the slide, he looked so very spectral that I couldn't forbear hailing him with--'Art thou a ghost or goblin damned?' which he persists in rendering his own fashion. I'm sure I didn't intend to liken him to a barn-yard fowl of any kind; I should rather have gone into the stable in search of comparisons." To the great chagrin and astonishment of Mr. Brewster, all hands of us burst into a roar of laughter; but Langley, by the skipper's advice, finally begged pardon, and peace and amity were restored. Brewster withdrew his objections, and the skipper granted us a week's liberty. The next day, after dinner, the yawl was brought to the side and manned, and my chum and I prepared for our departure.