I met the two sailors at “Old Ben’s” tavern. They had been waiting, taking a nip or two at a table until I came.

“’Tis good liquor,” said Garnett, as he put down his glass; “’tis a most holy an’ pious drink, makin’ all manner of holy an’ pious thoughts come into my old head. ’Tis good liquor an’ well fitted for a man along in years, like myself, who has filled his skin with all manner of truck and ruined his digestion. You say you’ll have another?”

The glasses were refilled.

“Now, ’pon me whurd, fer a fact, Mr. Gore, ’tis fer gettin’ outrajis drunk that baldheaded infidel is after; jist obsarve him.”

Garnett had removed his cap and was hard at work mopping the dent in the top{286} of his shining, bald cranium, where he had been “stove down” by a handspike in the hands of a sailor on one of his early voyages. Then he pulled out his little nickel-plated vial and sniffed at it violently.

“I don’t mind his personalities,” he remarked, “for I call to mind the time well enough when I could make him or any of his kin toe a seam. We had a little fracas onct, when I was mate with old man Anderson, and he remembers well enough what I used to be when it came to finding out who was who on a vessel’s main-deck.”

“What Anderson was that?” I asked. “You mean the one who used to be in with Mr. Ropesend?”

“Sure, no other, though I supposed he was dead long afore this. He was an out an’ outer when he was on deep water, an’ a little more so when he was on the beach. I misremember something about a shindy he got into on the West Coast, when he was skipper of the Ivanhoe. He did the right thing, though, for he took the boy along with him as soon as he growed big enough{287} an’ carried him around the Cape. Afterward he made a present of him to old man Brown’s wife, who had no young uns of her own, an’ who was always making pets of dogs and parrots aboard and driving the old man half crazy. Old man Brown and your father, old man Gore, were great chums, and so he was with old Mr. Ropesend—”

“Ye can’t believe nothin’ a garrulous owld man like him says,” interrupted O’Toole. “Let’s have another round av th’ crayther an’ discuss somethin’ worth hearin’, sich as wimmin, for instance. He’s an ondacent owld scandal. A rale owld scandal.”

“Pay no attention to him,” said Garnett, and I could tell by the slight thickness of his speech that the old mate was getting his head sheets in the wind. “I was about to tell of one of old Brown’s monkeys, when he stuck his head into the muzzle of the fog-horn one day, an’ this boy turned her loose, full blast. Gord! I believe the critter ain’t through climbin’ yet—up an’ down—mizzen{288} r’yal truck—then to the mainmast head—then for’ards an’ up agin—”

“Hold on a minute,” I said, “before we have any more liquor; I want to ask both of you if you will sail with me on the Arrow the day after to-morrow?”

“What! sail away again afore a man has a chanct to get the sea roll out of his legs an’ some good liquor into them?” roared Garnett. “I reckon not. What’s liquor made for, anyway? D’ye expect we’d think o’ sech a thing?”

“Certainly; the pay is good, and we are bound for China.”

Neither answered for several moments; but Garnett gave me a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye and then looked at O’Toole.

Finally he said:

“I might go as mate, but nothin’ would tempt me to sail under a fellow like that.” And he pointed at O’Toole.

O’Toole seemed to be hunting for something in the bottom of his glass, and he said nothing.{289}

“Well,” I observed, somewhat dryly, “come take a turn through the park and let’s discuss the matter before it’s too late. There’s plenty of time to get a brace on afterward. I must have a couple of men that I can rely on.” And, making this last appeal to their vanity, I arose from the table and they followed me.

After settling the score, we walked up the street, which was still filled with people, and were just about to enter the park when a crowd forming on............