The captain walked away without further reply, and shortly after went down below. Swinburne ranged up alongside of me as soon as the captain disappeared.
“Well, Mr Simple, so I hear we are bound to the Baltic. Why couldn’t they have ordered us to pick the convoy off Yarmouth, instead of coming all the way to Portsmouth? We shall be in to-morrow, with this slant of wind.”
“I suppose the convoy are not yet collected, Swinburne; and you recollect, there’s no want of French privateers in the Channel.”
“Very true, sir.”
“When were you up the Baltic, Swinburne?”
“I was in the old St. George, a regular old ninety-eight; she sailed just like a hay-stack, one mile ahead and three to leeward. Lord bless you, Mr Simple, the Cattegat wasn’t wide enough for her; but she was a comfortable sort of vessel after all, excepting on a lee shore, so we used always to give the land a wide berth, I recollect. By-the-bye, Mr Simple, do you recollect how angry you were because I didn’t peach at Barbadoes, when the man sucked the monkey?”
“To be sure I do.”
“Well, then, I didn’t think it fair then, as I was one of them. But now that I’m a bit of an officer, I’ll just tell you that when we get to Carlscrona, there’s a method of sucking the monkey there, which, as first lieutenant, with such a queer sort of captain, it is just as well that you should be up to. In the old St. George we had seventy men drunk one afternoon, and the first lieutenant couldn’t find it out nohow.”
“Indeed, Swinburne, you must let me into that secret.”
“So I will, Mr Simple. Don’t you know there’s a famous stuff for cuts and wounds, called balsam?”