"`Blues?' says I. `Blues ain't no name for it! I'm sick and tired of the ship, and everybody in her. I haven't been given no peace nor rest,' says I, `since the day when I was clumsy enough to smash the gig. Of course I was sorry I done it,' I says, `and I'd ha' said so if the skipper had only treated me properly; but I ain't sorry _now_, and I means to take it out of him for the rest of the v'yage by doin' every blessed thing I can think of to vex him. He's made it pretty hot for me lately, and I means to make it hot for _him_,' I says; `and you may go aft and tell him so if you like,' says I. "`No, Joey,' says he, `I'm not the man to tell tales upon a shipmate; nor there ain't nobody else in the fo'c's'le as'll do such a dirty trick. But what's come over ye, man? You're that changed as your own mother wouldn't know ye. I'm surprised at you,' he says--`a man that used to be such a tremenjous favourite with the skipper and the rest of 'em aft. What's the meanin' of it all?' "`Look here, Bill Rogers,' says I, turnin' upon him as savage as you please, `just you drop that--d'ye hear? I gets hectorin' and hazin' enough from the quarter-deck; I won't have none of it from _you_, nor from any other man what's in this ship's fo'c's'le; so now I hopes you understand,' I says. "`All right, mate,' he says; `you needn't lose your temper with me; there's no occasion for it. Besides, I'm a short-tempered man myself, and if it comes to--but that's neither here nor there. I don't want to quarrel with you, Joe; I'd a deal rather we was all fast friends in the fo'c's'le. We foremast men ought to stick to one another, and back one another up; don't you think so?' "`Yes, I do,' says I; `but how much have any of you chaps stuck to me, or backed me up? You've been as thick as thieves together,' I says; `but--because, I s'pose, I haven't been to the gold-fields--you've made me feel like a houtsider, from the very commencement of the v'yage,' I says. "`Well, if we did,' says he, `it was because we didn't know you so well as we do now.' "After that he stood pullin' away at his pipe, and cogitatin' like, for a minute or two; and then he looks up in my face, and says-- "`Look here, Joe Martin, you've been on the growl for more'n a week now; but I s'pose if I was to give you the chance to get back into the skipper's favour by tellin' him somethin' he'd very much like to know, you wouldn't be above doin' it, would you?' "`I don't want no chance to get back into the skipper's favour,' I says. `If you knows anything that he'd like to know, go and tell him yourself,' says I. "`Why, Joe,' he says, laughin', `you've regular got your knife into the old man,'--beggin' your pardon, Cap'n Saint Leger, but them was his words, sir." "All right, Joe," I whispered, anxiously; "what happened next?"