‘What I know, and what you don’t know,’ cried Jack, ‘is that I have not so much as a single ten-inch spike left aboard.’ ‘God set a flower upon you, my dear, with your ten-inch spike,’ said Stephen. ‘Of course I know it: you have mentioned them daily these last two hundred leagues, together with your hanging-ends and double-sister-blocks; and nightly too, prattling in your sleep. Bow, bow to predestination or at least confine yourself to silent prayer.’
