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friendly with each other, but the midshipman can only express it by appearing to hate the farm-fisher boy, whom he considers to be socially far beneath him. The farm-boy tries so hard to be kind to the midshipman, who is so rude in return.
Eventually the midshipman escapes, the smugglers are caught, and the farm-boy becomes a seaman on the Excise vessel. NH _____________________________________________________________________
CUTLASS AND CUDGEL, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
"Heigh-Ho-Ha-Hum! Oh dear me!"
"What's matter, sir?"
"Matter, Dirty Dick? Nothing; only, heigh-ho-ha! Oh dear me, how sleepy I am!"
"Well, sir, I wouldn't open my mouth like that 'ere, 'fore the sun's up."
"Why not?"
"No knowing what you might swallow off this here nasty, cold, foggy, stony coast."
"There you go again, Dick; not so good as Lincolnshire coast, I suppose?"
"As good, sir? Why, how can it be?" said the broad, sturdy sailor addressed. "Nothin' but great high stony rocks, full o' beds of great flat periwinkles and whelks; nowhere to land, nothin' to see. I am surprised at you, sir. Why, there arn't a morsel o' sand."
"For not praising your nasty old flat sandy shore, with its marsh beyond, and its ague and bogs and fens."
"Wish I was 'mong 'em now, sir. Wild ducks there, as is fit to eat, not iley fishy things like these here."
"Oh, bother! Wish I could have had another hour or two's sleep. I say, Dirty Dick, are you sure the watch wasn't called too soon?"
"Nay, sir, not a bit; and, beggin' your pardon, sir, if you wouldn't mind easin' off the Dirty--Dick's much easier to say."
"Oh, very well, Dick. Don't be so thin-skinned about a nickname."
"That's it, sir. I arn't a bit thin-skinned. Why, my skin's as thick as one of our beasts. I can't help it lookin' brown. Washes myself deal more than some o' my mates as