ng way to work, you fool!'

No one else in the whole ship would have dared to call the Captain
'You fool!' No one else could have done so without being put in
chains. But the jester might do as he liked. His business was to make
the Captain laugh; and at these words he did laugh. 'Show me the right
way to make him work, then,' said he. 'That I will gladly,' answered
the jester, 'we will have a bet. I will give you one golden guinea if
I cannot make him draw ropes, if you will give me another if I do
compel him to do so.'

'Marry that I will,' answered the Captain, and forthwith the two
guineas were thrown down on the deck, rattling gaily, while all the
ship's company stood around to watch what should befall.

'Then the jester called for two seamen and made them make two ropes
fast to the wrists of my arms, and reeved the ropes through two blocks
in the mizen shrouds on the starboard side, and hoisted me up aloft,
and made the ropes fast to the gunwale of the ship, and I hung some
time. Then the jester called the ship's company to behold, and bear
him witness, that he made the Quaker hale the king's ropes; so
veering the ropes they lowered me half-way down, then made me fast
again. "Now," said the jester, "noble Captain, you and the company see
that the Quaker haleth the king's ropes"; and with that he commanded
them to let fly the ropes loose, when I fell on the deck. "Now," said
the jester, "noble Captain, the wager is won. He haled the ropes to
the deck, and you can hale them no further, nor any man else."'

Not a very good joke, was it? It seems to have pleased the rough
sailors since it set them a-laughing. But it was no laughing matter
for Richard Sellar to be set swinging in the air strung up by the
wrists, and then to be bumped down upon deck again, fast bound and
unable to move. The Captain did not laugh either. The thought of his
lost money made him feel savage. In a loud, angry voice he called to
the boatswain's mate and bade him, 'Take the quakerly dog away, and
put him to the capstan and make him work.'

Only the jester laughed, and chuckled to himself, as he gathered up
the golden guineas from the deck, and slapped his thighs for pleasure
as he slipped them into his pockets.

Meantime the boatswain's mate was having fine sport with the 'Quaker
dog,' as he carried out the Captain's orders. Calling the roughest
members of the crew to help him, they beat poor Richard cruelly, and
abused him as they drag