Hanging up their oilskins, they proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Some crawled into their bunks for a short spell; others, with pipes alight, sat round on the chests, then yarns and chaff began to fly round. Without it was cold and wet, nearly dark and with every prospect of a dirty night. The wind could be heard moaning and crying, whistling and screaming through the rigging. The ship groaned and creaked beneath the sledge-hammer blows of the heavy head sea. The sprays rattled outside, and all was dismal and comfortless. What wonder if the watch below is one of the comforts of a sailor's life. "Golly, byes!" burst out the cockney, as he dashed in dripping. "Poor ole Bob, didn't 'e get it socked to 'im. 'E weren't 'ollerin' for more when the bosun got through with 'im, were 'e? Sykes alive! but it were a h'awful lickin'!" "Begob! but it takes the divil an' all to tackle that big hefty brute of a bosun; an' now he has the poor varmint overhaulin' buntlines. Be me sowl, but Bob's fair up agin' it!" said Paddy. "And serve him right. The amount of work he does wouldn't bother a child," remarked Jack scornfully. "Oh, Bob's orl right. 'Is trouble is weakness. 'Ow can 'e work? That bloke ain't got more strength than a 'edge-sparrer; 'is 'ealth is give h'out." "Who told you that?" asked Jack. "'E did 'imself, 'bout two days back." "And whatever is the malady of this here weak-kneed kyard-sharp?" inquired Broncho, in his slow, polite way. "'E sez as 'ow h'it's consumption which 'as 'im in its gruesome clutches." "I ain't heard him kaufin' none," remarked the cowboy suspiciously. "I cuts the trail one time of a gent who cashes in from that cawpse-makin' complaint, an' he shore coughs a heap plentyful, an' that loud an' wideflung you couldn't bed-down in the same teepee with him an' make any sort o' success o' slumber. His kaufin' that-away shore puts a bull-moose to shame." "Now, see 'ere, ducky, I ain't er-sayin' as 'ow that ain't the general racket; but Bob, 'e sez to me, sezzee, 'I'm past the korfin' styge; h'I just spits up my lungs in chunks; h'I ain't the strength to korf,'" returned the cockney doggedly. "I ain't in line for no sech flapdoodle as that," drawled Broncho. "He ain't goin' to fool this old he-coon none that-away. Why, consumption can no more make a play without kaufin' than smallpox can without spots." "'Ave it 'ow you loike--h'I just tells you what 'e sez, that's h'all," retorted the cockney angrily. "Thet's right, pard; but I reckons Broncho calls the deal correct when he says that consumption ain't no more than a low-grade malady without kaufin'. It's kaufin' that makes it the clean-sweep disease that it is," joined in old Bedrock Ben. "Bedad thin," commented Pat, "Bob's sick with consumption, but the disaise ain't after makin' him ill at all." "The man's as strong and well as you or I," exclaimed Curly hotly, poking his head out of his bunk.