"Maybe then ye'd add a mite to your kindness and let me borry his time for a half-glass or so for to show me a couple o' landmarks I must make in the town. I wouldn't ask it of ye, sir, only as ye see, I'm half-crippled in a manner o' speakin', and this is a strange port to me, as plies usual to the West Injies."
"Use the lad by all means," I answered. "Darby, take Master Silver wherever he wishes to go."
Darby's freckled face gleamed at the prospect of more of the company of this one-legged sailorman, who talked so easily of pirate fights and flights.
"Oh, aye, Master Robert," says he. "I'll help him all I know."
"O' course he will," spoke up Silver. "I never seed a boy wi' a kinder face. A kind face means a kind heart, I always says, young gentleman."
My wherryman was on the point of laying to his oars when a sudden thought caused me to check him.
"By the way, Master Silver," I called, "it occurs to me that perhaps Darby may be unable to serve you in all that you wish. Do you seek any one in especial?"
He hesitated for just the fraction of a minute.
"Why, not especially in particklar, sir," he answered at last. "I am for the Whale's Head Tavern, if ye happen to know o' such a place."
I nodded.