"Oh, I shouldn't like to say that," replied Wardle. "I do, however, think he exaggerates and puts it on a bit thick. That isn't bein' a liar. I daresay he has saved life at sea. He wouldn't have offered me a silver-mounted sextant if he hadn't several."
"I shall believe you will get it when I see you with it," said Jack Humphries. "In my opinion Captain Amos Brown is a first-class liar."
Perhaps he spoke a little too loudly for a public place, though that public place was a billiard-room with four second mates playing a four-handed game, and making as much row over it as if they were picking up the bunt of the fore-sail in a gale of wind. He was overheard by the only old man in the room.
"Did I hear you mention someone called Amos Brown?" asked the old chap sitting next to him.
"I did, sir," said the second mate of the Ullswater. "Do you know him?"
"I had an Amos Brown as an apprentice with me when I commanded the Samuel Plimsoll," replied the old gentleman, "and he was a very remarkable lad. I think I heard you say that this one was a liar?"
"I did," said Humphries; "though perhaps I shouldn't have done so, as I'm second mate with him now, sir."
The old boy shook his head.
"I won't tell him. But it surely must be the same. The Brown I knew was an awful liar, and I've seen many in my time, gentlemen."
He asked them to drink with him, and they did it willingly. To know the one-time skipper of the old Samuel Plimsoll was something worth while, seeing that she had once held the record for a day's run. And if his Brown was theirs it was a chance not to be missed. They took their drinks, and asked him to tell them all about Amos Brown.