"Drink you'll get here, no doubt," said I. "But as to meat—doubtful."
His reply to that was to point to the sign above the inn door, to which we were now close. He read its announcement aloud, slowly.
"'The Mariner's Joy. By Hildebrand Claigue. Good Entertainment for Man and Beast,'" he pronounced. "'Entertainment'—that means eating—meat for man; hay for cattle. Not that there's much sign of either in these parts, I think, master."
We walked into the Mariner's Joy side by side, turning into a low-ceilinged, darkish room, neat and clean enough, wherein there was a table, chairs, the model of a ship in a glass case on the mantelpiece, and a small bar, furnished with bottles and glasses, behind which stood a tall, middle-aged man, clean-shaven, spectacled, reading a newspaper. He bade us good morning, with no sign of surprise at the presence of strangers, and looked expectantly from one to the other. I turned to my companion.
"Well?" I said. "You'll drink with me? What is it—rum?"
"Rum it is, master, thanking you," he replied. "But vittals, too, is what I want." He glanced knowingly at the landlord. "You ain't got such a thing as a plateful—a good plateful!—of cold beef, with a pickle—onion or walnut, 'tain't no matter. And bread—a loaf of real home-baked? And a morsel of cheese?"
The landlord smiled as he reached for the rum bottle.
"I daresay we can fit you up, my lad," he answered. "Got a nice round of boiled beef on go—as it happens. Drop of rum first, eh? And—yours sir?"
"A glass of ale if you please," said I. "And as I'm not quite as hungry as our friend here, a crust of bread and a piece of cheese."
The landlord satisfied our demands, and then vanished through a door at the back of his bar. And when he had expressed his wishes for my good health, Salter Quick tasted the rum, smacked his lips over it, and looked about him with evident approval.