Upon one occasion, I had the curiosity to go on board a salt-drogher, and fall into conversation with its skipper, a bachelor, who kept house all alone. I found him a very sociable, comfortable old fellow, who had an eye to having things cozy around him. It was in the evening; and he invited me down into his sanctum to supper; and there we sat together like a couple in a box at an oyster-cellar.
“He, he,” he chuckled, kneeling down before a fat, moist, little cask of beer, and holding a cocked-hat pitcher to the faucet—“You see, Jack, I keep every thing down here; and nice times I have by myself. Just before going to bed, it ain’t bad to take a nightcap, you know; eh! Jack?—here now, smack your lips over that, my boy—have a pipe?—but stop, let’s to supper first.”
So he went to a little locker, a fixture against the side, and groping in it awhile, and addressing it with—“What cheer here, what cheer?” at last produced a loaf, a small cheese, a bit of ham, and a jar of butter. And then placing a board on his lap, spread the table, the pitcher of beer in the center. “Why that’s but a two legged table,” said I, “let’s make it four.”
So we divided the burthen, and supped merrily together on our knees.
He was an old ruby of a fellow, his cheeks toasted brown; and it did my soul good, to see the froth of the beer bubbling at his mouth, and sparkling on his nut-brown beard. He looked so like a great mug of ale, that I almost felt like taking him by the neck and pouring him out.
“Now Jack,” said he, when supper was over, “now Jack, my boy, do you smoke?—Well then, load away.” And he handed me a seal-skin pouch of tobacco and a pipe. We sat smoking together in this little sea-cabinet of his, till it began to look much like a state-room in Tophet; and notwithstanding my host’s rubicund nose, I could hardly see him for the fog.
“He, he, my boy,” then said he—“I don’t never have any bugs here, I tell ye: I smokes ’em all out every night before going to bed.”
“And where may you sleep?” said I, looking round, and seeing no sign of a bed.
“Sleep?” says he, “why I sleep in my jacket, that’s the best counterpane; and I use my head for a pillow. He-he, funny, ain’t it?”
“Very funny,” says I.