"Spin!" added my grandfather.
Sailor Ben resumed: "I leave you to guess the wretchedness as fell upon me, for I've not got the gift to tell you.

There I was down on the ship's books for a three years' viage, an' no help for it.

I feel nigh to six hundred years old when I think how long that viage was.

There isn't no hour-glass as runs slow enough to keep a tally of the slowness of them fust hours.

But I done my duty like a man, seem' there wasn't no way of gettin' out of it.
I told my shipmates of the trick as had been played on me, an they tried to cheer me up a bit; but I was sore sorrowful for a long spell.