For a moment, a long moment, after they’d finished explaining the ins and outs of getting hired, Nils only looked at them. His expression very clearly confused and wistful. He knew how easy it was to get into the rigs that sailed the water, he’d seen a few of his friends run down to the docks and get caught up in the rush easy as you please. Not half as many folks wanted a job on the water anymore now the ships could take to the air. But there were still so many more floating on the waves than off them. There was a good sight worth of competition to get aboard anything even close to the [i]Annabella[/i]’s make, and here these two were sitting there telling him he’d get the job just as soon as he knocked off their captain’s hat!

He’d have been a fool to believe them. What sort of man went around inviting the indignity of getting his hat knocked off his head? He could hear his da calling down a world of trouble on anyone even thinking to try the same with him. “So…” He said, all business now the fun’d been taken out of making mock. “So, you’re after telling me as your cap’s so down on hisself he needs others t’do his believin’ in hisself for ‘im, and now he’s gone and lost hisself somewhere?”

He didn’t see much point in believing in a man who didn’t believe in himself. Why else would he make that a requirement of his crew? 

“And I knocks his hat off’n his head, he’ll have me onboard?” The question emerged in a rather rhetorical fashion, he’d heard them the first time, and simply couldn’t express his incredulous opinion without the repetition. “Yous two think I was born yesterday? Pfah, I ain’t never heard such fadoodle. G’wan squiddle someone else’s time.” 

He waved his hand dismissively and turned to head back the way he’d come. More annoyed that he even wanted to believe what they were telling him than that they’d turned the game back on him.