"I'm doin' fifteen months," he confidingly said.

Then he added, with look half positive and half interrogative, "Time's damned long, ain't it ?" I agreed.

Forgetting his work, he spliced a bit of rope badly.

"See," I said, "that splice is wrong." "Ah," he replied, his face brightening, "you're a salt un too, are ye?
Hanged if I didn't think you was a barnacle." He informed me that he had been in the English and American navies, and all round the world.

Where had I been?
I was obliged to explain that I was a journalist.