"As I was just going to observe," she would begin, as gravely as a drunken man addressing a lamp-post.

The rest of the sentence (she acted her words in dumb-show, of course) was lost in a fit of the fidgets, when she behaved like a puppy chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her head cut off, or a cow stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the sea took her.
"See her sayin' her piece.

She's Patrick Henry naow," said Dan.
She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her jib-boom from port to starboard.
"But-ez---fer-me, give me liberty--er give me-death!" Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying with a flourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear sniggered mockingly in its box.
Harvey laughed aloud.

"Why, it's just as if she was alive," he said.
"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin'," said Dan, enthusiastically, as he was stung across the deck in a batter of spray.
"Fends 'em off an 'fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh me,' she sez.

Look at her--jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one o' them toothpicks h'istin' up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathom water." "What's a toothpick, Dan ?" "Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats.