face?"

"Oh yes, I know your smile. Now then, speak out. What do you want?
What is there wrong?"

"Oh, nothing worth speaking of, Mr Poole. I arn't the sort of fellow
to grumble, Mr Burnett, sir; but now just look here, gentlemen.--Get
out, will you! Bother the flies! I wish I could 'ford to keep a nigger
with a whisk made out of a horse's tail. They are regular tarrifying me
to-day. I wouldn't keer if I could kill one now and then; but I carn't.
Either they're too fast or I'm too slow. But now just look here, both
on you, gentlemen. Here's a pretty position for a fellow to be in!
Nobody can't say even in this hot country as I arn't willing to work my
spell, but here's the skipper says to me, he says, `I want you to do
everything you can,' he says; `take what men you want, and make this
'ere aitch--he--hay--ender as strong as you can.' Now, I ask you, just
give your eyes a quick turn round the place and tell me, as orficers as
knows what's what, how am I to make a thing strong as arn't strong, and
where there arn't a bit of stuff to do it with? For what's the good of
a lot of bamboo-cane when what one wants is a load of good honest
English oak, or I wouldn't say no to a bit of teak."

"Well, it is a ramshackle sort of place, certainly, Chips."

"Ramshackle, sir? Why, a ramshackle shed is a Tower of London to it.
It's just a bandbox, that's what it is--just one of them chip and blue
paper things the same as my old mother used to keep her Sunday bonnet
in. Why, I could go to one end, shet my eyes, and walk through it
anywhere. Why, it wouldn't even keep the wind out. Look at them
windows--jalousies, as they calls them, in their ignorant foreign
tongue. Look at 'em; just so many laths, like a Venetia blind. What's
to be done to them? And then them doors. Why, they wouldn't keep a cat
in, let alone a Spaniel out. I dunno what's to be done; and before I
know where I am the skipper will be back asking me what I have been
about. Do you know what I'm about? About off my head. A man can't
make something out of nothing. Where's my tools? says you. Aboard the
schooner. Where's the stuff to work with? Nowhere. Why, I aren't got
so much as a tenpenny-nail. It's onreasonable; but I suppose it aren't
no use to talk. Come on, my lads, and let's see. Axes here. Get one
in between them two floor-boards and wedge one of them out--that's the
style!" And as he spoke, _rip, rip, crack_! the board was wrenc