The bowl of grog shall still renew,
And pledge to love and beauty.
"Well reeled off, Billy," cried Jemmy Ducks, finishing with a flourish on his fiddle, and a refrain of the air. I don't think we shall meet him and his dog at Fidler's Green--heh!"
"No," replied Short, taking his pipe from his lip.
"No, no, Jemmy, a seaman true means one true in heart as well as in knowledge; but, like a blind fiddler, he'll be led by his dog somewhere else."
"From vere de dog did come from," observed Jansen.
The band now struck up again, and played a waltz--a dance new to our country, but older than the heptarchy. Jansen, with his pipe in his mouth, took one of the women by the waist, and steered round the room about as leisurely as a capstern heaving up. Dick Short also took another, made four turns, reeled up against a Dutchman who was doing it with sang froid, and then suddenly left his partner and dropped into his chair.
"I say, Jemmy," said Obadiah Coble, "why don't you give a girl a twist round?"
"Because I can't, Oby; my compasses arn't long enough to describe a circle. You and I are better here, old boy. I, because I've very little legs, and you, because you havn't a leg to stand upon."
"Very true--not quite so young as I was forty years ago. Howsomever I mean this to be my last vessel. I shall bear up for one of the London dock-yards as a rigger."