It was the captain of the American schooner, from out of which we were then taking the casks of flour.
“We’ve no sarvice in our country, I’ve a notion, my old bobtail roarer,” said he. “When do you come alongside of my schooner, for tother lading with this raft of yours? Not to-night, I guess.”
“Well, you’ve guessed right this time,” replied old Tom; “we shall lie on the mud till to-morrow morning, with your permission.”
“Yes, for all the world like a Louisiana alligator. You take things coolly, I’ve a notion, in the old country. I don’t want to be hanging head and starn in this little bit of a river of your’n. I must be back to New York afore fever time.”
“She be a pretty craft, that little thing of yours,” observed old Tom; “how long may she take to make the run?”
“How long? I expect in just no time; and she’d go as fast again, only she won’t wait for the breeze to come up with her.”
“Why don’t you heave-to for it?” said young Tom.
“Lose too much time, I guess. I have been chased by an easterly wind all the way from your Land’s End to our Narrows, and it never could overhaul me.”
“And I presume the porpoises give it up in despair, don’t they?” replied old Tom, with a leer; “and yet I’ve seen the creatures playing across the bows of an English frigate at her speed, and laughing at her.”
“They never play their tricks with me, old snapper; if they do, I cuts them in halves, and a-starn they go, head part floating on one side, and tail part on the other.”