I laughed. “Thank you for nothing,” said I. “And now I will trouble you for a sight of those papers that we were speaking of.”
“I’ll be darned if yew will, though, stranger!” he snapped. “No, sirree; not much, I don’t think! Why, yew’re even more ignorant than I thought yew was, and I must teach ye another little bit of yewr business. Why, yew goldarned Britisher, d’ye know that yew haven’t got no right at all to stop me from pursooin’ my v’yage, or to demand a sight o’ my papers? Supposin’ I was to report this outrage to my Gover’ment, what d’ye suppose would happen? Why, our men-o’-war would just up and sink every stinkin’ Britisher that they comed across!”
“Ah, indeed!” I retorted sarcastically. “Very well; now we’ll have a look at those papers; after which you may take whatever steps you deem fit.”
“And supposin’ I refuse?”—began the skipper. But the mate, seeing, I imagine, that I would take no denial, seized his irate superior by the arm and, leading him right aft, conversed with him in low tones for nearly five minutes, at the end of which time they both came forward to the break of the poop, and the skipper, descending the poop ladder, remarked ungraciously:
“Waal, since nothin’ less than seein’ my papers ’ll satisfy ye, ye’d better come into my cabin, and I’ll show ’em to yew.”
Whereupon I followed him in through a passage which gave access to a fine, airy poop cabin, plainly but comfortably fitted up, and seated myself, uninvited, upon a cushioned locker while my companion went alone into his state-room, returning, a minute or two later, with a large tin box, the contents of which he laid upon the table.
“Thar they are,” he exclaimed, pushing them toward me; “look at ’em as long as yew like! I guess yew won’t find nothin’ wrong with ’em.”
Nor did I. I inspected them with the utmost care, and ultimately came to the conclusion that they were genuine, and that the ship was undoubtedly the Virginia, and American.
“Waal,” exclaimed the Yankee skipper, when I at length refolded and handed the papers back to him, “are ye satisfied, stranger?”
I intimated that I was.