"Well, how-some-ever, we nips out with the little Jokers (they was writ
in the manifest as minin' pumps) an' starts south. This 'ere _pasear_
down to Gortamalar is the first time I goes a-gallying about on what the
Three Crows calls 'blue water'; and when that schooner hit the bar I
begins to remember that my stummick and inside arrangements ain't made
o' no chilled steel, nor yet o' rawhide. First I gits plum sad, and
shivery, and I feels as mean an' pore as a prairie-dog w'ich 'as eat a
horned toad back'ards. I goes to Ally Bazan and gives it out as how I'm
going for to die, an' I puts it up that I'm sure sad and depressed-like;
an' don't care much about life nohow; an' that present surroundin's lack
that certain undescribable charm. I tells him that I _knows_ the ship is
goin' to sink afore we git over the bar. Waves!--they was higher'n the
masts; and I've rode some fair lively sun-fishers in my time, but I
ain't never struck anythin' like the r'arin' and buckin' and
high-an'-lofty tumblin' that that same boat went through with those
first few hours after we had come out.

"But Ally Bazan tells me to go downstairs in the boat an' lie up quiet,
an' byne-by I do feel better. By next day I kin sit up and take solid
food again. An' then's when I takes special notice o' the everlastin'
foolishness o' Strokner and Hardenberg.

"You'd a thought each one o' them two mush-heads was tryin' to act the
part of a ole cow which has had her calf took. They goes a-moonin' about
the boat that mournful it 'ud make you yell jus' out o' sheer
nervousness. First one 'ud up an' hold his head on his hand an' lean on
the fence-rail that ran around the boat, and sigh till he'd raise his
pants clean outa the top o' his boots. An' then the other 'ud go off in
another part o' the boat an' _he'd_ sigh an' moon an' take on fit to