He then bade me procure writing materials whilst he and Bates went to the forecastle to look at Nodder. I told Collins to sit, and wrote down just as he talked. I felt heartily grateful to the man; here, now, was a piece of valuable testimony in Tom’s favour; this sailor, when he told his story, did not even know the name of the man he was addressing; and then, how could he have invented that stroke about the auger and that other point which had made Tom strike the table--I mean the statement that Captain Butler had asked Nodder for the loan of the auger? I was so pleased that, guessing he might be hungry, I put before him the best cold meal I could hastily collect, and made him drink some wine. Indeed, I waited upon him as though this poor, plain, silly-eyed sailor had been Tom himself. I asked many questions about Rotch and Nodder. He had nothing very ill to say of Rotch; Nodder he called a drunken, bungersome nughead. (He was of Somersetshire.) When he had finished eating he relieved Will. I told my cousin to see to the galley fire and laid the cloth for a late dinner, and whilst I was thus busy, Tom and Bates, talking together very earnestly, came along the deck and entered the cabin. I showed my sweetheart what I had taken down; he said: ‘Let the man put his mark here, and the three of you witness it whilst I hold the wheel.’ Bates read the deposition aloud, and then Collins made a cross, and we signed our names. This was a precious document. I would not have parted with it for all I was worth. I put it carefully away in the desk we had found in the cabin I occupied, and then returning I eagerly asked Tom what he had to tell me about Nodder.