My mates as ha' known me from a boy tells me that I've 'bellished the yarn since I first told it, and that all sorts of things have crept in which wasn't there first.

That may be so.

When a man tells a story a great many times, naturally he can't always tell it just the same, and he gets so mixed up atween what he told last and what he told first that he don't rightly know which was which when he wants to tell it just as it really happened.

So if sometimes it appears to you that I'm steering rather wild, just you put a stopper on and bring me up all standing with a question." There was a quiet humor about the boatman's face, and the boys winked at each other as much as to say that after such an exordium they must expect something rather staggering.

The boatman took two or three hard whiffs at his pipe and then began.
"It was towards the end of September in 1832, that's just forty years ago now, that I went out with my father and three hands in the smack, the Flying Dolphin.