'Look here, skipper,' Charlie interrupted, anxious to prevent a quarrel, 'I have a proposal to make. My friend and I left the Sparrow-hawk because the skipper was a wretched little bully. I suggest that we stay here, as passengers, until we meet a boat for Grimsby that will take us aboard.'
'You will have to pay me before you leave the Lily.'
'I'll do so, willingly, unless your charges are unreasonable.'
'Will you pay in advance?'
'Certainly not; but I'll settle up with you every evening.'
'Then hand over sixpence for those two cups of tea.'
'Sixpence!' Charlie answered, 'Why, you are charging as if you had put brandy in them. I'll give you threepence.'
Charlie took his belt from his pocket, and, as he undid the pouch attached to it, in which he kept his money, the skipper caught sight of three or four sovereigns.
'Well,' he said, as he pocketed the three pennies which Charlie gave him, 'I ought to let Skipper Drummond know that you are aboard; but, as I owe him a grudge, I won't. I haven't any spare bunks for you, so you must sleep on the cushions here.'
Charlie and Ping Wang were far from considering that a hardship, for the coper's saloon was a little palace compared with the Sparrow-hawk's foc's'le.