'I thought every one in the North Sea knew.'
'This is only my second voyage, and your countrymen do not talk to me as freely as if I were an Englishman. What is a coper?'
'It is a boat that sails about the North Sea to sell drink and tobacco to our fishermen. She flies a flag to show that she has tobacco for sale, and when the men come aboard her, they are tempted to drink, just as we were a few minutes ago. As a rule the poor fellows do drink, and if their money is not all spent by the time that they are intoxicated, they are cheated at cards or robbed. I am very much afraid that we have not bettered ourselves by leaving the Sparrow-hawk, for if the skipper of the coper finds that we have money, even though we neither drink nor gamble, he will be anxious to get rid of us.'
A few minutes later a boy brought down to them two mugs of what was supposed to be tea.
'What awful stuff,' Charlie exclaimed after tasting it. 'One sip is quite enough for me.'
'There must be something besides sugar and milk in it,' Ping Wang declared.
'That is very likely. The skipper hopes that it will get in our heads without our knowing that we have been drinking intoxicants. We will upset the rascal's plans by not drinking any more of the tea.'
In about a quarter of an hour the skipper returned.
'Well, boys, how are you getting on?' he exclaimed. 'Have some more tea?'
'No, thank you,' Charlie replied. 'We haven't drunk this. There's something about the taste that we don't like.'