"Me an' you might become mates, as it were," said Jessop, extending his large hand again and again. "Put it there."
"Well, we'd want to know something more about one another to become real mates," laughed Hurd.
"Oh, you're a commercial traveller, as you say, and I'm the captain of as fine a barkey as ever sailed under Capricorn. Leastways I was, afore I gave up deep-sea voyages."
"You must miss the ocean, living at Stowley."
"Inland it is," admitted the mariner, pulling out a dirty clay pipe, at the conclusion of the meal, "and ocean there ain't round about fur miles. But I've got a shanty there, and live respectable."
"You are able to, with the stand-by," hinted Hurd.
Jessop nodded and crammed black tobacco, very strong and rank, into the bowl of his pipe with a shaking hand. "It ain't much," he admitted; "folks being stingy. But if I wants more," he struck the table hard, "I can get it. D'ye see, Mister Commercial?"
"Yes, I see," replied Hurd, coolly. Jessop was again growing cross, and the detective had to be careful. He knew well enough that next morning, when sober, Jessop would not be so disposed to talk, but being muzzy, he opened his heart freely. Still, it was evident that a trifle more liquor would make him quarrelsome, so Hurd proposed coffee, a proposition to which the sailor graciously assented.
"Cawfee," he observed, lighting his pipe, and filling the room with evil-smelling smoke, "clears the 'ead, not as mine wants clearing, mind you. But cawfee ain't bad, when rum ain't t' be 'ad."
"You'll have more rum later," hinted Hurd.