“I guess,” he added presently, “the only thing we’ve got to do now is to shep a tol’able crew aboard; an’ then, I kalkerlate, mister, she’ll be the slickest whaler this v’y’ge as ever loos’d tops’les an’ sailed out o’ Narraganset Bay!”
“Will there be any difficulty in getting men?” asked Fritz.
“No, I reckon not, mister,” replied the skipper, with a huge guffaw at his ignorance. “Why, the crimpers would send ’em to me in shoals, fur Job Brown is as well-known in Providence as Queen Victoria is in England, God bless her fur a good woman, too! The diff’culty lies in pickin’ out the good ones thet air worth their salt from the green hands, as ain’t up to a kid of lobscouse fur all the work they ken do aboard a shep!”
“Well, I hope you’ll get the men you want,” said Fritz cordially.
“Nary a doubt ’bout thet,” answered the other, slewing round and trotting across the wharf to a line of warehouses and merchants’ offices on the other side. “I’m just a-goin’ to my agents now; an’ I ken tell you, fur a fact, thet Job Brown is never licked, no, sir, not when he makes up his mind to anythin’!”
In the evening of the same day he astonished Fritz somewhat.
“Who d’ye think wished fur to sign articles with me to-day fur the v’y’ge?” said he, after he mentioned that he had shipped his crew and that the Pilot’s Bride would haul out into the stream the next morning, preparatory to starting off altogether on the following day.
“I’m sure I can’t say,” replied Fritz.
“Who but our old friend Nat Slater!” said the skipper with a broad grin. “I guess Nathaniel Washington hez come down in the world ag’in, fur all his tall talkin’ about what he wer goin’ to do to help you, hey?”
“Have you taken him on?” asked Fritz, somewhat dubious about the pleasure which the society of the whilom “deck hand” of the steamboat would afford him when the two of them should be cooped together on board the same vessel for any length of time, especially after the way in which that individual had behaved to him.