I tells him the story. He rubs his hands and chuckles, and says: "Good! Great! Nothing to it--a pipe! But listen to me, boys. When you get up there in court, don't go trying to make any joke of it the same as you just done to me. Everything is all fixed up nicely for you to play heroes' parts. Here are all the newspaper accounts--look--of Captain Davies's heroic work and seamanship, as told by Captain Judkins, and of Captain Judkins's humane and heroic work as told by Davies. Even the crew--look--give out interviews of what heroes they were. And, lemme tell you, I've seen the _Happy Day_ many a time, and I wouldn't go outside in her for a million dollars. Now play it up, play it up--the storm, the peril, your own heroic efforts, you know." Which was all right to say; but imagine any human being getting up to tell of our trip and leave out the funny little parts, especially when we see Judkins sitting in a back bench listening, though he didn't listen too long. He all at once got up and didn't come back. In the old days we'd have been awarded 50 or 60 per cent for our part, and she was a million-dollar ship with her cargo; but the insurance companies don't let any loose-footed seafarers put across anything like that these days. We got thirty thousand dollars for salving the ship, and ten thousand more for the loss of the _Happy Day_. Our slick lawyer said we hadn't played it up right. "But never mind," he said; "I've been allowed full damages for the _Happy Day_ and awards for your time and some of the risk you-all ran. There's twenty thousand for you boys." Wheezer and Scoot looked at me, and I looked at the lawyer. "Twenty thousand? Don't you think it's too much for us?" I asks. "Why," he says, "it is a lot o' money for you boys to be carrying away for one night's work. But I generally split it that way--fifty-fifty." We were in his office. I told Wheezer and Scoot to wait for me below. "Perhaps there'd better be no witnesses," I whispered to Scoot, and they got out. The bright young lawyer takes another look at me after I lock the door and come back to him. "What do you mean to do?" he says. And I said: "First, I'm going to give you one whale of a beating." "You lay your hands on me," he says, "and I'll have you up for assault and battery. I'll show every mark in open court." "I'm going to mark you," I said, "where you won't show them in any open court." And I did. "And that's only the beginning," I said; but about then he agreed to call in Wheezer and Scoot; and, for instructing us to comport ourselves with dignity before the high court, we thought five hundred was about right, and after another little chat he agreed it was. We gave William T. the same for what he'd done, and he stayed drunk for a week at the Blue Light, which is what we reckoned he would do. But he was his own boss ashore.