"We wouldn't take the value of a cent if you had all the money in the land," Captain Eph cried emphatically. "This 'ere crew tries to do its duty by the Government, an' when that's been done, if we can work in a little overtime, like takin' you off the wreck, we feel as if we could look ourselves in the face knowin' we'd lent a hand when it was needed."
The serious tone which the conversation had taken did not please Uncle Zenas, and in order to change the subject he held up the coat on which he had been working, saying as he did so:
"Come here, Sonny, an' let me see how it fits. I don't claim to be any great shakes of a tailor; but I hope there's gimp enough in me yet to do a job like this in a decent manner. Of course Cap'n Eph will buy you what's needed, when he goes ashore to-morrow, but even then this won't go amiss to knock around on the ledge in."
Uncle Zenas had no reason to be ashamed of his work; he had made a sailorly looking garment out of Captain Eph's second-best uniform coat, and it fitted Sidney quite as well, if not better, than any which could have been purchased ready made.
"I allers said you was a master hand with a needle, Uncle Zenas," Mr. Peters cried as he surveyed Sidney in his new coat, with the eye of a critic, "an' here's the proof that I knew what I was talkin' about. Captain Eph may buy clothes for Sonny till the day of his death, an' he won't get anything that'll match this one for all-around goodness."
"I'll do better than that before Sonny has finished his year on Carys' Ledge," the cook said, vainly striving to hide the pardonable pride he felt because of his work. "Jest now, though, it's my business to get dinner, an' if you people will go up into the watch-room so's a man can have a chance to turn 'round, we'll have some prime salt fish boiled, with plenty of pork scraps."
"So long's you've got your coat on, you may as well come with me an' see what's left of the motor boat," Mr. Peters said to Sidney, and since Captain Eph did not make any objection to the proposition, the two went down to the ledge.
The machinery was all that could be seen of the little craft in which the lad had spent so many wretched hours, and that was so badly rent and rusted that Sidney felt confident it could never be put in working order again.