"Ay, ay, sir; that's all true enough, so far as the craft is concerned. If this was a West India v'y'ge, I wouldn't stand a minute about signing the articles; nor should I make much question if the craft was large enough for a common whalin' v'y'ge; but, sealin' is a different business, and one onprofitable hand may make many an onprofitable lay." "All this is true enough; but we do not intend to take any unprofitable hands, or to have any unprofitable lays, You know me--" "Oh! if all was like _you_, captain Gar'ner, I wouldn't stand even to wipe the pen. _Your_ repitation was made in the southward, and no man can dispute your skill." "Well, both mates are old hands at the business, and we intend that all the 'ables' shall be as good men as you are yourself." "It _needs_ good men, sir, to be operatin' among some of them sea-elephants! Sea-dogs; for sea-dogs is my sayin'. They tell of seals getting scurce; but I say, it's all in knowin' the business--'There's young captain Gar'ner,' says I, 'that's fittin' out a schooner for some onknown part of the world,' says I, 'maybe for the South Pole, for-ti-know, or for some sich out-of-the-way hole; now he'll come back _full_, or I'm no judge o' the business,' says I." "Well, if this is your way of thinking, you have only to clap your name to the articles, and take your lay." "Ay, ay, sir; when I've seed my shipmates. There isn't the business under the sun that so much needs that every man should be true, as the sea-elephant trade. Smaller animals may be got along with, with a narvous crew, perhaps; but when it comes to the raal old bulls, or bull-dogs, as a body might better call 'em, give me stout hearts, as well as stout hands." 'Well, now, to my notion, Watson, it is less dangerous to take a sea-elephant than to fasten to a regular old bull-whale, that may be has had half a dozen irons in him already." "Yes, sir, _that's_ sometimes skeary work, too; though I don't think so much of a whale as I do of a sea-elephant, or of a sea-lion. 'Let me know my shipmates,' say I, 'on a sealin' expedition.'" "Captain Gar'ner," said the deacon, who necessarily overheard this discourse, "you ought to know at once whether this man is to go in the schooner or not. The mates believe he is, and may come across from the main without a hand to take his place should he leave us. The thing should be settled at once." "I'm willing to come to tarms this minute," returned Watson, as boldly as if he were perfectly sincere; "only let me understand what I undertake. If I know'd to what islands the schooner was bound, it might make a difference in my judgment."