When you got back home here fourteen hundred of it was missin'.

No, no, I don't mean that.

I mean you couldn't find fourteen hundred--I mean--" The captain's patience was, as he himself often said, moored with a short cable.

The cable parted now.
"Gracious king!" he snapped.

"Jed, if that yarn you're tryin' to spin was wound in a ball and a kitten was playin' with it you couldn't be worse snarled up.