If I didn't know you for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I'd take ye for a pirate." "Don't speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo," said the captain, with a slight frown.

"No good and true man ever does that." "No more I do," replied John Bumpus, while a deep red color suffused his bronzed countenance.

"No more I do, leastwise if they wos here I'd say it to their faces; for they're a set of as ill-tongued villains as I ever had the misfortune to--" "Silence!" exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder.
Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such a man, but John Bumpus was one of those few.

He did indeed remain silent for two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment.
"Capting," said he, seriously, "I don't mean no offense, but I'd have you to know that I engaged to work for you, not to hold my tongue at your bidding, d'ye see?
There ain't the man living as'll make Jo Bumpus shut up w'en he's got a mind to--" The captain put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him.

He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and breaking into a loud laugh, cried:-- "Come, Jo, you must admit that there is at least one living man who has made you 'shut up' before you had finished what you'd got to say." John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after which he made the following observation:-- "Capting, I've seed, in my experience o' life, that there are some constitootions as don't agree with jokin'; an' yours is one on 'em.