I hope no offence, Captain Savage; but I did not intend to displease you by my language." "Very good, Mr Muddle," replied the captain; "it's the first time that I have spoken to you on the subject, recollect that it will be the last." "The first time!" replied the carpenter, who could not forget his philosophy; "I beg your pardon, Captain Savage, you found just the same fault with me on this quarter-deck 27,672 years ago, and--" "If I did, Mr Muddle," interrupted the captain, very angrily, "depend upon it that at the same time I ordered you to go aloft, and attend to your duty, instead of talking nonsense on the quarter-deck; and, although, as you say, you and I cannot recollect it, if you did not obey that order instantaneously, I also put you in confinement, and obliged you to leave the ship as soon as she returned to port.

Do you understand me, sir ?" "I rather think, sir," replied the carpenter, humbly touching his hat, and walking to the main rigging, "that no such thing took place, for I went up immediately, as I do now; and," continued the carpenter, who was incurable, as he ascended the rigging, "as I shall again in another 27,672 years." "That man is incorrigible with his confounded nonsense," observed the captain to the first lieutenant.

"Every mast in the ship would go over the side, provided he could get any one to listen to his ridiculous theory." "He is not a bad carpenter, sir," replied the first lieutenant.
"He is not," rejoined the captain; "but there is a time for all things." Just at this moment, the boatswain came down the rigging.
"Well, Mr Chucks, what do you think of the yard?
Must we shift it ?" inquired the captain.
"At present, Captain Savage," replied the boatswain, "I consider it to be in a state which may be called precarious, and not at all permanent; but, with a little human exertion, four fathom of three-inch, and half-a-dozen tenpenny nails, it may last, for all I know, until it is time for it to be sprung again." "I do not understand you, Mr Chucks.

I know no time when a yard ought to be sprung." "I did not refer to our time, sir," replied the boatswain, "but to the 27,672 years of Mr Muddle, when--" "Go forward immediately, sir, and attend to your duty," cried the captain, in a very angry voice; and then he said to the first lieutenant, "I believe the warrant officers are going mad.

Who ever heard a boatswain use such language--'precarious and not at all permanent ?' His stay in the ship will become so, if he does not mind what he is about." "He is a very odd character, sir," replied the first lieutenant; "but I have no hesitation in saying that he is the best boatswain in his majesty's service." "I believe so too," replied the captain; "but--well, every one has his faults.