"Come, come, Cap'n, be just," returned the other. "There's no call to be angry with me in earnest. I'm on'y a chara'ter in a sea story. I don't really exist."
"Well, I don't really exist either," says the Captain, "which seems to meet that."
"I wouldn't set no limits to what a virtuous chara'ter might consider argument," responded Silver. "But I'm the villain of this tale, I am; and speaking as one sea-faring man to another, what I want to know is, what's the odds?"
"Were you never taught your catechism?" said the Captain. "Don't you know there's such a thing as an Author?"
"Such a thing as a Author?" returned John, derisively. "And who better'n me? And the p'int is, if the Author made you, he made Long John, and he made Hands, and Pew, and George Merry - not that George is up to much, for he's little more'n a name; and he made Flint, what there is of him; and he made this here mutiny, you keep