shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a
little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--

'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash
the two of ye!'

And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and
that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they
could get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--
and how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the
way through, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child
of Calamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-
wow for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when
they got through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and
cowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob
and the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they
had always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be
bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then
there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went
forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the
after-sweeps.

I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a
pipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and
they stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing
again. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another
patted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular old-
fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long
without getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.