"A little water, my lad?"
"No, sir, no; not for me. This rum is too good to be drowned."
He quaffed it, sighed, and put down the empty tumbler.
"Ah, sir!" he said, "now that very word 'drowned' makes me shiver. I've been, on and off, boy and man, at sea for well-nigh twenty years. Just entered as a boy, a tow-headed lad of Liverpool. Nothing to do till I growed a bit 'cepting to empty cook's ashes and pail, look after the dogs and ship's cat, feed the monkeys, and get kicked about all over the deck by anybody who wanted to stretch his legs a bit.
"But I grew into an able seaman at last. After'n which I gets to be second mate o' a Newcastle collier. Then fust mate. Then I up and studies for my certificate. You wouldn't think it, mebbe, of a rough chap like me, but I passed with flying colours, and steered homewards, wi' stunsails 'low and aloft, jolly happy now.
"I meets some maties, and two more overhauled me. So what could I do but go with 'em to wet my certificate.
"Sakes alive, cap'n! but I'd blush like a wirgin even now, if I weren't so brown and weather-beaten that ye wouldn't notice it.
"For, sir, I awoke next morning with a two-horse headache, and a tongue like kippered salmon. Clothes all on too, boots and all. I'd turned in all standing, but couldn't remember who'd brought me into port.
"Never mind, sir. 'Twere a lesson to me I ain't going to forget. Thankee, sir, I will have just another nip.
"But I s'pect, cap'n, I'm a kind o' hinderin' you I always do take longer time to tune my fiddle than to play my tune.