"Ya! ya! we've got to yoomp!" said a real Dutchman, and he was put in the place proper to a Dutchman at once. "Speak when you are spoken to," said the English and American seamen all at once. "These Dutchmen are getting past a joke, bullies." "So they are," said old Mackenzie, a shellback of the briniest description. "When I was a boy, if one of them opened his mouth too wide we used to put something in it." "What did you put in?" asked the eager Anglo-Saxons. "Oh, anything as he couldn't eat," said Mac. "A ball o' twine or a swab. I remember one Dutchy as _would_ talk----" But just then the man from Abo came in, and though the crowd was not really sympathetic, they asked him how his jaw felt. It appeared after all that he understood "United States" sufficiently well when it was to the point: that is, when it concerned his duty or the talk that goes on in a foc'sle. A word beyond these limits opened his eyes and shut his mouth. He was then like a waiter fresh from the Continent, who can talk in English about food, and food only. "Never you mind, Dutchy," said one of his own watch. "Mebbe, after all, it'll do you good. If Bragg hammers you, we won't." Even such consolation was better than none, and Dutchy was truly grateful. The lot of a "Dutchman" at sea is not always beer and skittles. But even an Anglo-American crowd can have sympathy when they are like to want it themselves. They certainly found that Billy Noyes's notion of a paradise made Tophet look cool, even as depicted to a sad and sober sailor in a waterside Bethel. They wanted Bordeaux badly, and under the influence of that desire and the stimulation supplied by the officers they lost no time in getting there. And as they were a fine lot as men go, few of them came in for actual hammering. The slowest got that always, and the man from Abo was the man to get it. It was marvellous to observe how much he got and how little it seemed to hurt him. He was knocked down once a day and twice on Sundays. Even when he got a chance to be first up aloft he never seemed to know it. The only way he had of getting down first was to fall. And once when he did so without seriously damaging himself Bragg hammered him for doing it. "What you're after is to be laid up; I see that," said Bragg. "But let me catch you at it." And Hans shook his head under Bragg's heavy hand till he forgot he had bruises on him the size of a soup-plate. "Dutchy's a fair wonder," said the crowd, rejoicing in their own freedom; "he's taking the whack of all us and never turns a hair. We'll have to get up a subscription for him. Ain't he just tough? Say, Dutchy, suppose you and Bragg or you and the old man was to have a fair set-to, d'ye think you could down either of 'em?" "Ya," said Hans from Abo very soberly, "neider of 'em can't hurt me mooch."