“I’m a Yankee sailor,” said I, “and if you want any business with me you’ll have to speak something I understand. And besides,” I added, edging closer to him, “I don’t allow fellows to talk about me in a foreign language,--unless I’ve got a good reason to think they’re saying something truthful. You savvey? Or I’ll make a handsome monkey of you by changing that figurehead you’ve got there.”
A sudden scowl came over the fellow’s face and went again. “I kin give you all the langwidge you need, young man, but I was only about to do you a favour.”
“‘Virtue is its own reward,’” I said, reaching into my pocket as though for a piece of money. “Cast loose!”
“It’s on account of that reward I reckon you don’t practise it,” grinned the fellow. “Perhaps a more substantial acknowledgment might--”
“Shut up!” I snapped. “If you are an American or English, let’s have your lay.
“Is it a ship you want me to take? For, if that’s your game, you better slant away. Don’t you see I’ve enough ship for the rest of my life, hey?”
The creature sidled closer to me and attempted to slip his arm through mine, but I brushed him away. He flashed that fox-like scowl at me again, his little yellow eyes growing into two points. He gave me an unpleasant feeling, and I watched his hands to see if he made any movement. Then I was more astonished, as I noticed his fingers. They were enormous.
“Look a-here now, don’t you think we cud do a bit a bizness without all these here swabs a-looking on? You look like you had sense enough to go below when it rains right hard. What! you follow me? Now there’s a ship without a navigator a-fitting out not far from here, and, if you’ll come go along with me, an’ talk the matter over, there’ll be no harm done except to the spirruts,--an’ they’s free.”
I was very thirsty and could talk no French, so, more to be guided to a place to quench my thirst on good ale than by curiosity, I allowed him to lead me up the dock. I noticed several of the loungers upon the pier-head scowl at me as I went my way, and one tall, fierce-looking fellow, who had been glancing at me frequently, gradually fell away from the group of loafers and strolled up behind us. I paid no further attention to these fellows, but, as I reached the street with its babble of unfamiliar language, a sudden feeling came upon me. I don’t know what it was, but I was only a boy, and the future seemed dark and lonely. I turned and looked back at the Washington. She was the only thing American in sight, and the months I spent aboard her were not to be thrust aside lightly. They had all been too full of work and sorrow.
“Good-bye, old barkey,” I cried, holding my right hand high up,--“good-bye, and may the eternal God--no, bless you.”