Grim's colossal proportions were increased so much by his hairy dress that he seemed to have spread out into the dimensions of two large men rolled into one.

But O'Riley was not to be overturned with impunity.

Skulking round behind the crew, who were laughing at Grim's joke, he came upon the giant in the rear, and seizing the short tail of his jumper, pulled him violently down on the deck.
"Ah, then, give it him, boys!" cried O'Riley, pushing the carpenter flat down, and obliterating his black beard and his whole visage in a mass of snow.

Several of the wilder spirits among the men leaped on the prostrate Grim, and nearly smothered him before he could gather himself up for a struggle; then they fled in all directions while their victim regained his feet, and rushed wildly after them.

At last he caught O'Riley, and grasping him by the two shoulders gave him a heave that was intended and "calc'lated," as Amos Parr afterwards remarked, "to pitch him over the foretop-sail-yard!" But an Irishman is not easily overcome.
O'Riley suddenly straightened himself and held his arms up over his head, and the violent heave, which, according to Parr, was to have sent him to such an uncomfortable elevation, only pulled the jumper completely off his body, and left him free to laugh in the face of his big friend, and run away.
At this point the captain deemed it prudent to interfere.
"Come, come, my lads!" he cried, "enough o' this.