“I don’t believe nothin’ o’ the sort,” returned the mate indignantly. “Fred Martin may be smooth-tongued and shy if you like, but he’s no hypercrite—”
“Hallo! there’s that mission ship on the lee bow,” cried Fox, interrupting his mate, and going over to the lee side of the smack, whence he could see the vessel with the great blue flag clearly. “Port your helm,” he added in a deep growl to the man who steered. “I’ll give her a wide berth.”
“If she was the coper you’d steer the other way,” remarked the mate, with a laugh.
“In course I would,” retorted Fox, “for there I’d find cheap baccy and brandy.”
“Ay, bad brandy,” said the mate; “but, skipper, you can get baccy cheaper aboard the mission ships now than aboard the coper.”
“What! at a shillin’ a pound?”
“Ay, at a shillin’ a pound.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“But it’s a fact,” returned the mate firmly, “for Simon Brooks, as was in the Short-Blue fleet last week, told me it’s a noo regulation—they’ve started the sale o’ baccy in the Gospel ships, just to keep us from going to the copers.”
“That’ll not keep me from going to the copers,” said Groggy Fox, with an oath.