“Very good; then you can go,” said the captain, shortly.
“Eh!” exclaimed the man:
“You can go,” repeated the captain. “You won’t suit. My ship is a temperance ship, and all the hands are teetotalers. I have found from experience that men work better, and speak better, and in every way act better, on tea and coffee than on spirits. I don’t object to their smoking; but I don’t allow drinkin’ aboard my ship; so you won’t do, my man. Good-morning.”
The “tail” gazed at the captain in mute amazement.
“Ah! you may look,” observed the captain, replying to the gaze; “but you may also mark my words, if you will. I’ve not sailed the ocean for thirty years for nothing. I’ve seen men in hot seas and in cold—on grog, and on tea—and I know that coffee and tea carry men through the hardest work better than grog. I also know that there’s a set o’ men in this world who look upon teetotalers as very soft chaps—old wives, in fact. Very good,” (here the captain waxed emphatic, and struck his fist on the table.) “Now look here, young man, I’m an old wife, and my ship’s manned by similar old ladies; so you won’t suit.”
To this the seaman made no reply, but feeling doubtless, as he regarded the masculine specimen before him, that he would be quite out of his element among such a crew of females, he thrust a quid of tobacco into his cheek, put on his hat, turned on his heel and left the room, shutting the door after him with a bang.
He had scarcely left when a tap at the door announced a second visitor.
“Hum! Another ‘tail,’ I suppose. Come in.”
If the new-comer was a “tail,” he was decidedly a long one, being six feet three in his stockings at the very least.
“You wants a cook, I b’lieve?” said the man, pulling off his hat.