"
"I haven't any time for reading, except when you let me sit here,
and on Sundays I'm on my bicycle or down the river all day.
There's nothing wrong about the hero, is there?"
"Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You say that your
hero went pirating. How did he live?"
"He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was telling you
about."
"What sort of ship?"
"It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts through the
oar-holes and the men row sitting up to their knees in water. Then
there's a bench running down between the two lines of oars and an
overseer with a whip walks up and down the bench to make the
men work."
"How do you know that?"
"It's in the tale. There's a rope running overhead, looped to the
upper deck, for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls.
When the overseer misses the rope once and falls among the
rowers, remember the hero laughs at him and gets licked for it.
He's chained to his oar of course--the hero."
"How is he chained?"
"With an iron band round his waist fixed to the bench he sits on,
and a sort of handcuff on his left wrist chaining him to the oar.
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