"The first English folks who came here were reduced to such straits, we are told, that they killed and ate each other; and those who returned were such skeletons that their wives and mothers did not know them."
Hartly laughed loudly, and said—
"But that was in the time of King Henry VIII., and people don't eat each other here now. But to resume what we were talking about——"
"Old Uriah Skrew, my father's agent, and I are on the worst terms; he keeps a constant watch over me. I go from my desk to bed, and from bed to my desk—so passes my existence."
"Why not slip your cable and run, then?"
"Skrew being a partner in the firm," I continued, warming at the idea of my own rights and fancied wrongs, "cares for nothing but making money from the riches of the sea, and thinks only of cargoes of fish to be bartered in Lent, at Cadiz, for fruit and wine, oil, seals, and blubber; and really in this cold season——"
"Ah, but summer is coming," interrupted Bob, drily.
"Summer! How is the year divided here?"
"Into nine months of winter and three of bad weather."
"A pleasant prospect! If I were once again at Peckham——"