"But what could Captain Schantze want with so many bottles of syrup and soda water aboard?"
"The English custom's officer who comes aboard here is an old friend of Schantze's, and a teetotaler ... so the captain always treats him to soda water."
"But Karl and I have drunk it all up already," I confessed slowly.
"You'll both catch a good hiding then when he calls for it and finds there is none."
The next day the customs man came aboard.
"Have a drink, Mr. Wollaston?" Schantze asked him.
"Yes, but nothing strong," for probably the tenth occasion came the answer.
Then offhandedly, the captain—as if he had not, perhaps, said the same thing for ten previous voyages: "I have some fine French soda water and syrup in my private locker, perhaps you'd like some of that, Mr. Wollaston?"
Mr. Wollaston, whose face and nose was so ruddy and pimply anyone would take him for a toper, answers: "Yes, a little of that Won't do any harm, Captain!"
"Karl!—Johann!" We had been listening, frightened, to the colloquy. We came out, trembling.