"No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or you'll get a tow over the side.

Understand ?" Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short lurch of the _Ghost_ sent him staggering.

In attempting to recover himself, he reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stove and kept the pots from sliding off; but he missed the railing, and his hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot surface.

There was a sizzle and odour of burning flesh, and a sharp cry of pain.
"Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot 'ave I done ?" he wailed; sitting down in the coal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth.

"W'y 'as all this come on me?
It mykes me fair sick, it does, an' I try so 'ard to go through life 'armless an' 'urtin' nobody." The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, and his face was drawn with pain.