"And warn't you there?" says Wabberley, his moist lips quivering with indignation. "I were," replies Chick, with vehemence. "Then what the blazes has any landlubber of a doctor got to do with it, what don't know one end of a ship from t'other!" There was nothing to be said in answer to this, and my uncle afterwards confided to me his opinion that Captain Cook's own journals contained a good many things which Dr. Hawkesworth had not seen fit to print. My uncle was so well pleased with the conversation of the seamen that he invited them to come and see him again, and before long it became their regular custom to drop in about supper-time, much to the annoyance of Aunt Susan. She called Nick Wabberley a lazy lubber, and as for Joshua Chick, she said his eyes made her feel creepy, and he ate enough for four decent men. But my uncle was fairly mounted on his hobby, and he asked her rather warmly whether she grudged a bite and a sup to worthy mariners who had braved the perils of the deep (not to speak of the appetites of cannibals) in the service of their country. 'Twas in vain she said that she knew Farmer Wabberley wished his brother at Jericho--the great fat lubber lolloping about doing nothing but eat and drink, when there were fields to hoe, and Joshua Chick looking two ways at once, one eye on bacon and the other on beer; 'twas a mercy he hadn't got two mouths as well, she said. My uncle would hear nothing against them; always kindly and indulgent, he reminded her that a gammon rasher and home-baked bread must be the most delectable of dainties to men who for months at a time ate nothing but salt junk and ship's biscuit. He never tired--nor, I must own, did I--of listening to Nick Wabberley. His face fairly glowed as he heard of those favoured islands of the south where food grew without labour and wealth was to be had almost without lifting a finger. Wabberley described the ease with which pearls might be obtained in the Pacific: how he had seen the natives dive into the water and bring up oysters, every tenth of them containing a gem, so little valued by the finders that the present of a four-penny nail or a glass bead would purchase a handful of them. Wabberley heaved a great sigh as he deplored his desperate bad luck in not being permitted to trade. "The Captain, d'ye see, warn't a trader," he said; "he was always thinking of taking soundings and marking charts and discovering that there southern continent, which I don't believe there ain't no such thing, though they do say as how the world 'ud topple over if there warn't summat over yonder to keep it steady. And as often as not, when we come to a island, we was so desperate pushed for provisions, and vegetables to cure us of the scurvy, that he hadn't no thought except for stocking the ship. Oh! 'twas cruel, when we might all ha' been as rich as lords, and all vittles found in the bargain."