what we can't git at nohow, overboard you go!' `That
would make you short-handed,' says Andy, with a grin. `Which is more'n
you could say,' says I, `if you'd chuck Tom an' me over'--alludin' to
his eleven-inch grip. Andy didn't say no more then, but after a while
he comes to me, as I was lookin' round to see if anything was in sight,
an' says he, `I spose you ain't got nothin' to say ag'in' my divin'
into the hold just aft of the foremast, where there seems to be a bit
of pretty clear water, an' see if I can't git up somethin'?' `You kin
do it, if you like,' says I, `but it's at your own risk. You can't
take out no insurance at this office.' `All right, then,' says Andy;
`an' if I git stove in by floatin' boxes, you an' Tom'll have to eat
the rest of them salt crackers.' `Now, boy,' says I,--an' he wasn't
much more, bein' only nineteen year old,--`you'd better keep out o'
that hold. You'll just git yourself smashed. An' as to movin' any of
them there heavy boxes, which must be swelled up as tight as if they
was part of the ship, you might as well try to pull out one of the Mary
Auguster's ribs.' `I'll try it,' says Andy, `fur to-morrer is
Christmas, an' if I kin help it I ain't goin' to be floatin' atop of a
Christmas dinner without eatin' any on it.' I let him go, fur he was a
good swimmer an' diver, an' I did hope he might root out somethin' or
other, fur Christmas is about the worst day in the year fur men to be
starvin' on, an' that's what we was a-comin' to.

"Well, fur about two hours Andy swum, an' dove, an' come up blubberin',
an' dodged all sorts of floatin' an' pitchin' stuff, fur the swell was
still on. But he couldn't even be so much as sartin that he'd found
the canned vittles. To dive down through hatchways, an' among broken
bulkheads, to hunt fur any partiklar kind o' boxes under seven foot of
sea-water, ain't no easy job. An' though Andy said he got hold of the
end of a box that felt to him like the big uns he'd noticed as havin'
the meat-pies in, he couldn't move it no more'n if it had been the
stump of the foremast. If we could have pumped the water out of the
hold we could have got at any part of the cargo we wanted, but as it
was, we couldn't even reach the ship's stores, which, of course, must
have been mostly sp'iled anyway, whereas the canned vittles was just as
good as new. The pumps was all smashed or stopped up, for we tried
'em, but if they hadn't 'a' been we three couldn't neve