"Blimy," said a young cockney called Corlett, who was the happiest chap on board, "I'll 'ave a shot for Jack's ten dollars!"
"My chest's not locked," said Jack, and among so friendly a crowd the suggestion, which was the friendliest joke, was marked up to Eales as happy wit.
"I'm in the race for that purse," said Bush, who was the oldest seaman on board.
"We're all after it," said the crowd, and for days afterwards they chased Jack Eales with absurd proposals, the very least of which was a felony, and the most pleasing absolute piracy.
"Oh, go to thunder," said Jack, when a lump of a chap called Pizzey proposed to scuttle the Enchantress as she lay alongside the wharf.
"Oh, very well," said Pizzey, who was much hurt at the way his plan was received, "but I'll have you know that if you do it after all, that ten dollars is mine."
The nature of seamen is so childlike, so forgetful, so forgiving, that without further and continual irritation they would have talked till the vessel was towed down the Willamette and the Columbia, and for that matter all the way to Liverpool. But the skipper saw to it that they
