“Most domestic, I’m sure,” continued Sartoris, trying hard to say the correct thing. “Most right an’ proper. Personally, I like to see young ladies attend to home dooties.”
Rose laughed. “Which is to say the comfort of you men.”
“My gal,” said her father sternly, “we have all we want. Me an’ these gen’lemen will be quite happy till dinner-time.”
Rose stooped to pick up the boots which her father had discarded for a pair of carpet-slippers, and rustled out of the room.
“Gen’lemen,” said the Pilot of Timber Town, “we’ll drink to better luck next time.”
The three men carefully filled their glasses, emptied them in solemn silence, and put them almost simultaneously with a rattle on the polished table.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Pilot, after a long-drawn breath. “Four over proof. Soft as milk, an’t it? Goes down like oil, don’t it?”
“Most superior tipple,” replied the skipper, “but you had your losses in The Witch, same as me and the owners. I had aboard six cases of the finest port as ever you tasted, sent out for you by your brother; senior partner of the firm, Mr. Scarlett. ‘Cap’n Sartoris,’ he says, ‘I wish you good luck and a prosperous voyage, but take care o’ that port wine for my brother. There’s dukes couldn’t buy it.’ ‘No, sir,’ I says to him, ‘but shipowners an’ dukes are different. Shipowners usually get the pick of a cargo.’ He laughed, an’ I laughed: which we wouldn’t ha’ done had we known The Witch was going to be piled up on this confounded coast.”
The Pilot had risen to his feet. His face was crimson with excitement, and his brow dark with passion.
“Cap’n Sartoris!” he exclaimed, as he brought his fist with a bang upon the table, so that the decanter and tumblers rattled, “every sea-faring man hates to see a good ship wrecked, whoever the owner may be. None’s more sorry than me to see the bones of your ship piled on that reef. But when you talk about bringing me a present o’ wine from my brother, you make my blood boil. To Hell with him and all his ships!” With another bang upon the table, he paced up and down, breathing deeply, and trembling with passion still unvented.