[The Sea-Wolf by Jack London]@TWC D-Link book
The Sea-Wolf

CHAPTER XII
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They are no good, sir." "And you've been shooting off your mouth about them." "I say what I think, sir," the sailor answered courageously, not failing at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that "sir" be appended to each speech he made.
It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen.

His big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson.

I noticed a black discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen's eye, a mark of the thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor.

For the first time I began to divine that something terrible was about to be enacted,--what, I could not imagine.
"Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my slop-chest and me ?" Wolf Larsen was demanding.
"I know, sir," was the answer.
"What ?" Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively.
"What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir." "Look at him, Hump," Wolf Larsen said to me, "look at this bit of animated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves and breathes and defies me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded of something good; that is impressed with certain human fictions such as righteousness and honesty, and that will live up to them in spite of all personal discomforts and menaces.

What do you think of him, Hump?
What do you think of him ?" "I think that he is a better man than you are," I answered, impelled, somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of the wrath I felt was about to break upon his head.


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