The Lifeboat | Page 7

drinkin' as I have to suspec' you, 'cause we're both here,
d'ye see? Howsever, I've been cruisin' after the same craft, an' so we've

met, d'ye see, an' that's nat'ral, so it is."
"Well, and now you have found me, what d'ye want with me?" said Bax,
finishing the bread and cheese, and applying to the gin and water.
"Shipmet, I'm goin' home, and wants a berth a-board the `Nancy,'" said
Bluenose.
"Couldn't do it, Captain," said Bax, shaking his head, "'gainst rules."
"I'll go as a hextra hand--a suppernummerary," urged the Captain.
"Why, Captain," said Guy, "is it not strange that I should have come
here to make the very same request? Come, Bax, you're a good fellow,
and will take us both. I will guarantee that my uncle will not find fault
with you."
"Ah, that alters the case," said Bax, "if you choose to take the
responsibility on your own shoulders, Guy, you're welcome to the best
berth a-board the old `Nancy.' D'ye know, I've a fondness for that old
craft, though she is about as unseaworthy a schooner as sails out o' the
port of London. You see, she's the only craft bigger than a Deal lugger
that I ever had command of. She's my first love, is the old `Nancy,' and
I hope we won't have to part for many a day."
"Quite right, young man," said Captain Bluenose, nodding his head
approvingly, and filling his pipe from a supply of tobacco he always
carried in the right pocket of his capacious blue waistcoat. The Captain
gazed with a look of grave solemnity in the manly countenance of the
young sailor, for whom he entertained feelings of unbounded
admiration. He had dandled Bax on his knee when he was a baby, had
taught him to make boats and to swim and row when he became a boy,
and had sailed with him many a time in the same lugger when they put
off in wild storms to rescue lives or property from ships wrecked on the
famous Goodwin Sands.
"Quite right, young man," repeated the Captain, as he lighted his pipe,
"your sentiments does you credit. W'en a man's got his first love, d'ye

see, an' finds as how she's all trim and ship-shape, and taut, and well
ballasted, and all that sort o' thing, stick to her to the last, through thick
and thin. That's wot I say, d'ye see? There's no two ways about it, for
wot's right can't be wrong. If it can, show me how, and then I'll knock
under, but not before."
"Certainly not, Captain," cried Bax, laughing, "never give in--that's my
motto."
"There," said Bluenose, gravely, "you're wrong--'cause why? You're
not right, an' w'en a man's not right he ought always to give in."
"But how is a fellow to know when he's right and when he's wrong?"
asked Bax.
"Con-sideration," said Bluenose.
"Bravo! Captain," cried Guy, with a laugh, "if it be true that `brevity is
the soul of wit,' you must be the wittiest fellow on Deal beach."
"I dun-know," retorted the Captain, slowly, "whether it's the soul or the
body o' wit, an' wot's more, I don't care; but it's a fact, d'ye see, that
consideration'll do it; least-wise if consideration won't, nothin' will. See
now, here it is,"--(he became very earnest at this point),--"w'en a thing
puzzles people, wot does people do? why, they begins right off to talk
about it, an' state their opinions afore they han't got no opinions to state.
P'raps they takes the puzzler up by the middle an' talks wild about that
part of it; then they give a look at the end of it, an' mayhap they'll come
back and glance at the beginnin', mayhap they won't, and then they'll
tell you as grave as owls that they've made up their minds about it, and
so nail their colours to the mast."
At this stage in the elucidation of the knotty point, Bluenose observed
that his pipe was going out, so he paused, pulled at it vigorously for a
few seconds, and then resumed his discourse.
"Now, lads, wot ought you for to do w'en you've got hold of a puzzler?
Why, you ought to sit down and consider of it, which means you

should begin at the beginnin'; an' let me tell you, it's harder to find the
beginnin' of a puzzler than p'raps you suppose. Havin' found the
beginnin', you should look at it well, and then go on lookin', inch by
inch, and fut by fut, till you comes to the end of it; then look it back,
oncommon slow, to the beginnin' again, after which turn it outside in,
or inside out,--it don't much matter which way,--and go it all over once
more; after which cram your knuckles