"That's a go, now! Slipped the cable, and let the end run out the hawse-hole?"
"Yes, Dick; and haven't buoyed the cable, neither."
"But what was the need of that? You never abused yourself with liquor. You could stop at the score."
"Ben begun it. You know John Strout, who was such a great friend of his."
"Was mate of the Leonidas?"
"The same. Well, he fell overboard drunk, after getting his liquor at Ben's house. Ben swore then that he'd never drink another drop, and he never has. I held out a good while; but at length I found I was making drunkards of the young folks by the wholesale. They had no idea of imitating old Uncle Yelf, who died drunk among the pigs; but they were going to do like Captain Rhines, who drank in moderation; and three fourths of them ended in becoming drunkards."
"This is all very fine for you, cap'n; but here's poor Dick comes ashore, goes into a boarding-house. If he don't drink, his shipmates tell him he's no part of a man. The landlord tells him, says he, 'Dick, you're a disgrace to the place. You're taking the shingles off the house, the shoes off my children's feet. You must drink for the good of the house.' I've no home to go to, no place to be decent in."
Our readers must recollect this was long before the era of "sailors' homes."
"Look here, my old web-foot," said the captain, bringing down his hand on Dick's shoulder with a force that would have made a less stalwart man wince; "you shall have a place to be decent in. You shall go home with me."
"Go home with you, cap'n! What could you do with such a rough customer as me? I should scare your family. You wouldn't try to make a farmer of an old shell-back. I might, perhaps, do something with horses, for my father carried the king's mail from Greenock; and, since I was knee high to a toad, I have been used to horses; but it's little old Dick knows about your horned cattle."