“Tank you, sir,” replied also Billy Pitt.
“Well, Billy. What’s the last word you read in your dictionary?”
“Last word? Let me see—Oh! commission, sar. You know dat word?”
“Commission! We all know what that is, Billy, and shall be glad to get it too, by-and-bye.”
“Yes, sar; but there are two kind of commission. One you want, obliged to wait for; one I want, always have at once,—commission as agent, sar.”
“Oh, I understand,” replied Bruce; “five per cent on the bottle, eh?”
“Five per cent not make a tiff glass of grog, Massa Bruce.”
“Well, then, Billy, you shall have ten per cent,” replied the midshipman, pouring him out a north-wester. “Will that do?”
The black had the politeness to drink the health of all the gentlemen of the berth separately, before he poured the liquor down his throat. “Massa Bruce, I tink doctor got a little rum in his cabin.”
“Go and fetch it, Billy; you shall have it back to-morrow.”