Now, I ain't that sort, leastways,
I shouldn't go to impose upon young gents like you as ha' had a real
adventure of your own, and showed oncommon good pluck and coolness
too. I don't say, mind ye, that every word is just gospel. My mates
as ha' known me from a boy tells me that I've 'bellished the yarn
since I first told it, and that all sorts of things have crept in
which wasn't there first. That may be so. When a man tells a story
a great many times, naturally he can't always tell it just the same,
and he gets so mixed up atween what he told last and what he told
first that he don't rightly know which was which when he wants to
tell it just as it really happened. So if sometimes it appears to
you that I'm steering rather wild, just you put a stopper on and
bring me up all standing with a question."
There was a quiet humor about the boatman's face, and the boys
winked at each other as much as to say that after such an exordium
they must expect something rather staggering. The boatman took two
or three hard whiffs at his pipe and then began.
"It was towards the end of September in 1832, that's just forty
years ago now, that I went out with my father and three hands in
the smack, the Flying Dolphin.
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