“Mr. Talisker, here’s your slave. His name is Ginger Brandy. If he irritates you, don’t hit him over the back with a capstan-bar, ’cause you’ll break the bar. Don’t heave a cocoa-nut at his head, ’cause you’ll damage the cocoa-nut. Just get up and toe his shins. Now, Ginger Brandy, bring the ice, and the coffee, and the lemons, and my pipe, and a bundle of smokes. Skedaddle!”
Ginger skedaddled quickly, brought out a little table from the raised poop, spread a white cloth, and in two minutes more had placed thereon two cups of fragrant coffee, with lumps of clear ice floating in each. And when Tom lit his cigar after drinking half of the coffee, Ginger Brandy took his stand beside his chair with a huge fan, and our hero felt as happy and comfortable as ever he had done in his life.
The Yankee’s pipe stood on deck, an immense hubble-bubble; the smoke, which passed through iced-water, being conducted to his lips by means of a tube that seemed yards in length. Sitting there in his rocker, with his long legs dangling over the bulwarks and his eyes half closed, Barnaby Blunt looked the quintessence of enjoyment.
“And what d’ye think o’ my little yacht, sirr,” he drawled at last. “Mind ye, I twigged you sizing her up. I see’d your smile; yes, sirr, I think I heard it.”
“Well,” said Tom, “to tell you the truth, I never saw so strange a craft before; and had I met her at sea, I shouldn’t have been able to say what was her nationality.”
“You do me honour. She’s my own idee. I’ve sailed in all kinds o’ craft, and saved a little pile. ‘Barn,’ says my wife to me onct, ‘why don’t ye build a boat o’ your own, and deal in notions?’ Well, sirr, the same thing had been runnin’ thro’ my head for months, and I set to work and planned out the ’Liza Ann. She is the safest brig that sails. She’s maybe not the fastest. Safety before speed, sirr. ‘I don’t mind waitin’ a month or six weeks,’ says my wife to me; ‘I don’t mind that, Barn,’ says she, ‘but always come home in your own ship, and not atop o’ the hencoop.’
“Yes, sirr, and the ’Liza Ann won’t broach to either, and she can’t be taken aback, and the sticks won’t blow out o’ her, and she’ll float in shoal water if a punt can, and if she does ship green seas, sirr, why they slide off again like rain off a garden roller. That’s what my ’Liza Ann is, sirr.”
Tom laughed at the Yankee’s enthusiasm.
“All my own idee—all my own and ’Liza’s remember.”
“Well, it must be a pleasant life—going anywhere and seeing anything.”