“We’re not too light, Mr. Stukeley. It ain’t as though we’d emptied her. We’ve taken in a lot of fresh water. A lot of scantling, too. A lot of this Virginia cider. Then there’s the new cables we bought from them Hog Islers. Besides the fifty odd ton of tobacco. Still, I don’t say but what she’ll cut up a bit of a dance, if she gets any weather going south.”
“I thought all her cargo was consigned to Virginia.”
“Did you, sir?”
“Surely. What’s the good of fencing? Good luck, captain. I’m not an old sheep, like your owners.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“You’re getting funny, captain. A wit. You ought to have been at the University.”
“That’s where they make gentlemen, sir.”
“Oh, you know that?”
“We’d one of them come with us in the Trinity. I know all about the universities.”
“He taught you, eh? Private tuition in the forecastle?”