Round went the windlass as leisurely as might be and another
bucketful was hoisted ashore. The man on deck spat on his hands, and
broke into cheerful song:--

"Was you iver to Que-bec,
Bonnie laddie, Hieland laddie
Was you iver to Que-bec,
Rousing timber over the deck?
Hey my bonny laddie!
Wur-roo! my heart's--"

The rage of the little man found extra vent.

"Look here, Caleb Trotter," he concluded, after a full minute of
profanity, "how do you think I'm to get my living and pay a set of
lubberly dolts like you?"

Caleb paused with his hand on the windlass, and suggested
retrenchment of the halfpenny a week hitherto spent in manners.
"'Cos, you see, all this po-liteness of yourn es a'runnin' to waste,"
he explained with fine irony.

But before the next load was more than three-parts hoisted, Caleb's
patience was exhausted. What he did was simple but decisive.
He removed his hold; the handle whizzed violently round, and the
bucket of bricks descended to the hold with a crash.

"Now I tell 'ee straight. Enough's enough; an' I han't got time, at
my time o' life, to be po-lite to ivery red-faced chap I meets.
You can pay me or no, as you likes; but I'm off to get a drink.