"And look at the gear," said Geordie; "everything ready to part a deal easier than my uncle is. I never lays hold of a halliard but I'm thinking I'll go on my back if I pulls heavy. Oh, it's a fair scandal!" He considered the scandal soberly and with some sadness. "He might leave you some dibs, Geordie," suggested his mate, Jack Braby. "He might, after all." "Not a solitary dime," said Geordie. "Him and me quarrelled because my father fought him in the street, and I hit the old hunks with a bit of a brick because he got my dad down." "Wot was the row about?" asked the others, eagerly. "Nothin' to speak of," said Geordie. "My old man said he was a bloodsucker, and that led to words. And I never hurt him to speak of. And yet I've shipped in one of his ships, and am as poor as he's rich. He allowed none of us would get a farthing; he shouted it out in the market-place and said hospitals would get it, because one of his skippers that he'd sacked cut him up awful with a staysail hank, and they sewed him very neat at one of 'em." "There's nothin' so good in a fight as a staysail 'ank," said Jack Braby, contemplatively. "I cut a policeman all to rags wiv one once." "Was that the time you done three months' 'ard?" asked the port watch. "Six," said Braby, proudly; "and I told the beak I could do it on my 'ead. But, Geordie, if you was owner yourself what would you do?" "Yes, wot?" asked the rest. Geordie shook his head and sighed. "I'd make my ships such that sailormen would be wantin' to pay to go in 'em," said Geordie. "I've laid awake thinkin' of it." "Oh, tell us," said all hands, with as much unanimity as if they were tailing on to the halliards under the stimulus of "Give us some time to blow the man down." "Tell us, Geordie." "I'd be friends with all my men, for one thing," said Geordie, "and I'd not have a single Dutchman in a ship of mine." The three "Dutchmen" on board, one of whom was a Swede, another a German, and the third a Finn, shifted uneasily on their chests, but said nothing. "And not a Dago," continued the "owner," "and I'd give double wages and grog three times a day and tobacco thrown in. And the cook shouldn't be a hash-spoiler, but what Frenchies call a _chef_." "We never heard of that. How d'ye spell it, Geordie?" "S--H--E--double F," said Geordie; "and it means a man that is known not to spoil vittles, as most sea-cooks does, by the very look of him. And when it was wet or cold the galley fire should be alight all night. And the skipper and the mates should be told by me, and told very stern, that if they vallied their billets a continental they'd behave like gents and not cuss too much. And there shouldn't be no 'working up,' and any officer of mine that was dead on 'dry pulls' on the halliards should have the sack quick. And every time a ship of mine came into dock I'd be there, and I'd see what the crowd's opinion was of the skipper and the mates. Oh, I'd make my ship a Paradise, I would!"