Stevey Todd went back to the galley, and it
seemed to me the difference between his nature and Flannagan's was
something to wonder at and admire, and when I saw Flannagan he seemed
to have the same opinion with me, for he says:
"Powers an' fryin' pans! Thot cook!" he says. "Thot galley shlave!
Thot boiled pertaty widout salt! Shall a barrel of flour put me in
the soup? Tell me thot!"
At the time we were exhibiting in the larger towns about Long Island
Sound, where it happened we'd never exhibited before, dropping into
harbours and setting up the big tent on any bit of land convenient to
the pier. We stayed a long or short time, according to patronage.
Whether it was that Flannagan was too busy, or angry at Madame Bill
for her actions, and didn't know if he wanted a wife with a spear, or
one that was reckless with her headgear, I couldn't have said at that
time; but he surely said no more to Madame Bill that I knew of,
whereas Stevey Todd kept arguing with her all over the ship, and
mainly under the cabin window. Sometimes he'd trim his sails close in
to the subject of matrimony, and sometimes he'd be sailing so far off
the quarter that I couldn't but call out to him through the window
and tell him, "Hard a lee there, Stevey! You'll never fetch it that
tack;" when he'd shift his helm, feeling the edge of the breeze with
as neat a piece of seamanship as a man could ask, and come up dead
into the wind, his sails dropping back stiff on his yardarms, and the
subject of matrimony speared on the end of his bowsprit; then Madame
Bill would get up, and run away laughing.
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