“Then I calculate you must go to Boston or Baltimore to git one,” replied the ship’s officer. “There’s no one this side the water can do the job. We have our freight all ready and are homeward bound; we have elegant accommodation, and you will be across before your young friend’s beard is ripe for a razor. Come down and take an observation of the state cabin.”
The hospitable seaman now led his guests to the state cabin, and would not let them go till they had drunk a toast under the Star-Spangled Banner to the memory of Washington and the prosperity of the American commonwealth. Peach brandy was the drink. The toast concluded, the mate rummaged for a moment in a locker, and then offered his visitors a gift right from an old time sailor’s heart.
“There, gentlemen,” said the sailor. “Guess you don’t see nuthin’ like this in these parts!”
“Plug tobacco,” said the dark man.
“Yes sirree, Mister,” replied the mate. “And real old Virginia cake. Jest you set your teeth in that, Mister,” he continued offering the plug to the fair-haired guest, “and tell me if you’ve tasted anything so good since the big wind.”
The fair-haired visitor, however, refused both the brandy and “the chaw,” but managed to quaff a glass of weak grog to the memory of the first of presidents. The blue eyes gathered a strange fire.
“Washington,” said this other visitor, “as a warrior and a statesman he was righteous in all he did, and unlike all who have lived before or since, he never used his power but for the benefit of his fellow creatures.
He fought
For truth and freedom, foremost of the brave,
Him glory’s idle glances dazzled not;