The counting-room of Messrs. Manly and Skrew stood within a courtyard, which was entered by a gateway from Water-street; and from this court—which was formed by four large wooden stores, all pitched, tarred, and now coated with snow and ice—a path led down to the wharf, at the end of which, as at the end of all the others that jutted into the harbour, a mercantile flag was displayed from a mast. In this court were piles of old barrels, hampers, boxes, an anchor, a spare topmast or so, half buried under the usual white mantle, on which a flock of poor little snowbirds were hopping and twittering drearily.
"Do you feel snug, sir?" inquired Paul Reeves, through the bunghole.
"Yes; but please to lose no time in getting me through the crowd on the wharf, and on board the Leda" I replied, in a somewhat imploring tone of voice; for the cask, though a roomy one, was the reverse of comfortable, and already I longed to stretch myself.
"The Leda lies just outside the Bristol clipper."
"She that was overhauled and plundered, and had three of her crew shot by the Black Schooner?"
"Yes, sir," replied Reeves, as the two seamen hoisted up the cask; and I soon became aware by the clamour around me that I was being conveyed down to the wharf, where Mr. Skrew, in a full suit of Petersham and sables, was walking to and fro till his sledge arrived.
"Hallo, what have you fellows got in the cask?" he demanded as I was borne past him.
"Some of the captain's stores, sir," replied Reeves.
"His grandmother's best featherbed," added the carpenter.
"Very good," said Uriah, as I was deposited almost on his gouty toes.