“Revenue, by George!” exclaimed the master, as soon as his breath was exhausted in the whistle. “Who would have believed they could have screwed themselves up to doing such a thing in that bloody service?”
“I now remember to have heard that Uncle Sam was building some large steamers for the revenue service, and, if I mistake not, with some new invention to get along with, that is neither wheel nor propeller. This must be one of these new craft, brought out here, into open water, just to try her, sir.”
“You’re right, sir, you’re right. As to the natur’ of the beast, you see her buntin’, and no honest man can want more. If there’s any thing I do hate, it is that flag, with its unnat’ral stripes, up and down, instead of running in the true old way. I have heard a lawyer say, that the revenue flag of this country is onconstitutional, and that a vessel carrying it on the high seas might be sent in for piracy.”
Although Harry Mulford was neither Puffendorf nor Grotius, he had too much common sense, and too little prejudice in favor of even his own vocation, to swallow such a theory, had fifty Cherry-Street lawyers sworn to its justice. A smile crossed his fine, firm-looking mouth, and something very like a reflection of that smile, if smiles can be reflected in one’s own countenance, gleamed in his fine, large, dark eye.
“It would be somewhat singular, Capt. Spike,” he said, “if a vessel belonging to any nation should be seized as a pirate. The fact that she is national in character would clear her.”
“Then let her carry a national flag, and be d—d to her,” answered Spike fiercely. “I can show you law for what I say, Mr. Mulford. The American flag has its stripes fore and aft by law, and this chap carries his stripes parpendic’lar. If I commanded a cruiser, and fell in with one of these up and down gentry, blast me if I wouldn’t just send him into port, and try the question in the old Alms-House.”
Mulford probably did not think it worth while to argue the point any further, understanding the dogmatism and stolidity of his commander too well to deem it necessary. He preferred to turn to the consideration of the qualities of the steamer in sight, a subject on which, as seamen, they might better sympathise.
“That’s a droll-looking revenue cutter, after all, Capt. Spike,” he said—“a craft better fitted to go in a fleet, as a look-out vessel, than to chase a smuggler in-shore.”
“And no goer in the bargain! I do not see how she gets along, for she keeps all snug under water; but, unless she can travel faster than she does just now, the Molly Swash would soon lend her the Mother Carey’s Chickens of her own wake to amuse her.”
“She has the tide against her, just here, sir; no doubt she would do better in still water.”