we'd heard as how there was such things. We was as happy and contented a pleasant-going little village as you could have wished, we was; but now, so help me God! you fellows have turned our little spot into a regular witches' kitchen, that you have. Two days you've been here, and two murders we've had—one a day—and if you stays here for a year, as you can calculate for yourself, we'll have three hundred and sixty-five, at the present rate. Of course it's good for my trade, so I says nothing. Go on murdering to your hearts' content, for I can knock up one a day all right, but I ain't a-goin' to take any blame about it, and, wot's more, I object to being dreamt about; so another night kindly leave me out of your adventures, 'cos I don't like bein' mixed up with such traffic."
Saying which Mipps stepped across to the corpse of Bill Spiker, and, producing his footrule, measured him up, and entered the same in a dirty notebook.
The captain then proceeded to the barn and soundly rated his still drowsy men; and putting the bo'sun in charge of the corpse, he asked Doctor Syn to join him for breakfast at the Ship. And as there was no schoolmaster, and consequently no school, Jerry Jerk had the extreme pleasure of waiting upon them.
