“I may have one, or I may not. It is not usual for so large a craft to run the Gate without a pilot.”
“Oh! my gentleman’s below, brushing up his logarithms. We shall have him on deck to take his departure before long, when I’ll let him know your kind inquiries after his health.”
The man on the wharf seemed to be familiar with this sort of sea-wit, and he made no answer, but continued that close scrutiny of the brig, by turning his eyes in all directions, now looking below, and now aloft, which had in truth occasioned Spike’s principal cause for uneasiness.
“Is not that Capt. Stephen Spike, of the brigantine Molly Swash?” called out the little, dumpling-looking person, in a cracked, dwarfish sort of a voice, that was admirably adapted to his appearance. Our captain fairly started; turned full toward the speaker; regarded him intently for a moment, and gulped the words he was about to utter, like one confounded. As he gazed, however, at little dumpy, examining his bow-legs, red broad cheeks, and coarse snub nose, he seemed to regain his self-command, as if satisfied the dead had not really returned to life.
“Are you acquainted with the gentleman you have named?” he asked, by way of answer. “You speak of him like one who ought to know him.”
Josh educating a Pig
Philadelphia 1847
“A body is apt to know a shipmate. Stephen Spike and I sailed together twenty years since, and I hope to live to sail with him again.”
“You sail with Stephen Spike? when and where, may I ask, and in what v’y’ge, pray?”
“The last time was twenty years since. Have you forgotten little Jack Tier, Capt. Spike?”