But we had come alongside the catboat, and no one could talk for a
little while until we were all arranged in the boat and our man had
told Jerry and me to pull a mattressy thing out of the tiny little
cabin and had laid Greg on it in the bottom of the boat. He gave him
some stuff out of a little flasky bottle, too, and Greg sputtered
over it and said "Ugh!" but afterward he said:

"It's nice and hot inside when I thought it had gone."

And we couldn't talk, either, when our man was hoisting the
orange-painted sail and hauling up the anchor and running back and
forth to pull ropes and things. But when he was settled at the
tiller and all of us were cosy with sweaters and coats, Jerry asked
him again.

"Why, you see," the Bottle Man said, "something had hit me very hard
and for a long time all that I was able to do was to totter along on
the two sticks."

"But what hit you?" I asked.

He dropped his voice, because Greg was actually asleep.

"An inconsiderate shell," he said.

For a minute, because I was so used to thinking of him on the lonely
island, I imagined a big conch-shell being hurled at him from
somewhere. Then Jerry and I both gasped: