“Jee-hosophat!” whistled the skipper. “They’re sartinly putting on style in the hackin’ line.”
Then the van appeared, but it was too far away for Captain Bodfish to see just what it was.
“Blast ’em,” he snorted, “I didn’t telefoam for no furnitur’ to be moved.” He clumped across the deck and stood at the rail, peering under his palm.
Captain Nymphus Bodfish of the packet “Effort” had never met Hiram Look, having scornfully refused to “go up and hang ’round a peep-show.” He was not familiar, as were his townsmen, with the showman’s vans and horses.
His slow comprehension did not connect this apparition in Square Harbour with anything that could have come out of Palermo.
“They’re both of ’em wearin’ plug hats,” he soliloquised as the outfit came rattling down the alley, “but ’tain’t no hearse, painted and gew-gawed up like that.”
The equipage made a gallant sweep past the end of the storehouse near the packet’s berth and halted at the edge of the dock. Hiram leisurely tucked away his whip in the socket beside the seat, passed the reins to Peak and jumped to the ground.
“We didn’t have to waste a minute askin’ the way, Cap,” he remarked, cheerfully. “I find that the ‘Effort’ puts up at the same old dock, even if you are a new skipper.”
“Ain’t anything very new about ten years o’ runnin’,” returned Bodfish, rather surlily, for the stranger’s easy familiarity nettled him.
“Well, it makes you new to me,” said Hiram. “Howsomever, I ain’t got time to swap a great deal of talk.” He pulled out his watch. “I’ve got thutty-five minutes to git to the station if she ain’t here. If she is here I want her.”