I’m not a man to bemoan my luck, like nearly all sailors, and when I find I’m down I make the best of it. So when old Bill Garnett—who had been mate with my father a score of years before—looked askance at me and called me Mr. instead of captain, knowing my rating, I shook his hand and sat beside him on the main hatch.
Once in the shade of the mainsail the old mate fixed himself comfortably and took from his coat pocket a small nickel-plated vial, at which he sniffed loudly.
“What in th’ name av the saints have ye got yer fins on now?” asked O’Toole, who had seated himself opposite. He stared in wonder at the operation while the odour of peppermint filled the air.
“Blarst me if I know,” grunted Garnett, still sniffing violently at the vial.
“What! peppermint? Ye coom t’ that in yer owld age? ’Pon me whurd, ’twas a different odour ye used to carry about ye.”
“I ain’t as young as I was onct, and that place in my head troubles me more as I grows older. This little thing was sold to me by a fellow on the beach, who said it was good for things in the head, an’ he wasn’t the biggest liar I ever knew, for it does me a power o’ good, ’specially at night. You see, I’m too old, anyway, to be cruising about much longer, and if it wasn’t for the money to be gotten out of a cargo like we carry, I would stay on the beach. Then, again, there’s family affairs that makes me want to feel the heave of a ship’s deck under me once more; but these are private matters and don’t concern no one but the parties involved.
“This here little thing’s called ‘Killakoff Kurakold,’ which, the fellow said what sold it to me, was Roosian for neuralg’a cure; but it has an almighty Yankee smack to it. After all, when a man gets along toward his last cruise, like me, he has to take some things for granted—an’ he sees the value of leading an unselfish life, and that the only real pleasures are those what relieve sufferings of others.”
“’Pon me whurd, you have got it down mighty fine. Th’ very whurds old Father Easyman used t’ say; an’ I do belave th’ medicine has virtue whin it kapes an owld memory alive like that. ‘Sufferin’s av others,’ hey! Which goes t’ show yer mane th’ fellow what invented that little instrument was a thrue philanthropist, an’ a man after yer own heart.”
“I don’t remember hearing those words before,—leastways, not put in that way,—but if you mean to say I didn’t make them up myself, why, I suppose you’re right,” growled Garnett.
“As for making words brand-new, it’s a trade I don’t go into much. All words I ever seen or heard, except some in foreign languages, was invented long afore I was afloat,—such as Tom, Bill, and the likes. You say that dapper chap there, talking to Johnson, is third mate? S’help me! I suppose old man Crojack will be shipping sky-pilots and holy Joes next,” and he carefully replaced his vial in his pocket, while he listened to Brown talking to one of the boat’s crew who had climbed on deck.