"I trust I am as much a gentleman as any one under your roof," I returned, hotly.
"Heighty-tighty! what have we here?" the landlord said. "I forget. The price is three dollars, and it's the last room in the house. I had partly engaged it to a gentleman in a cocked hat, but he has failed to appear. Pay in advance, please, or you don't ship for the night."
I gave him one of the gold pieces. He slipped it into his pocket without comment, and told the servant to show me up stairs. The room was quite large and comfortable, the soft bed with the white sheets looked inviting, and I was so stiff and tired from my walking that I tumbled out of my clothes and drew the covers over me.
I thought that I should go to sleep at once, but as is often the case, thoughts prevent the proper closing of the eyelids, as if they were the doors of the mind. What was I to do on the morrow? It was full eight days ahead of the time that I had promised to meet Plummer, and I had but four gold pieces. A thrill of fright took hold of me when I thought that perhaps my uncle might follow me and fetch me back with him. The noise of shouting and loud talking below in the tap-room, and the singing and chattering on the streets, continued for a long time; and I tossed uneasily.
To the best of my recollection I had not lost myself in sleep at all when I heard some stumbling and laughing out in the hall; then the door to my room was pushed open, and a hand shielding a candle, the light of which dazzled my eyes so that at first I could not see clearly, extended through the doorway. A man entered, talking loudly to some one who was following him.
"Come in, come in, Bullard; and don't drop that bottle for the life of you."
A thick growling voice answered. "I've had all the bottle I want, Captain Temple," were the words I caught, and the second man came in. He also carried a candle.
"What is it you wish to discuss with me, sir, that we couldn't say before McCulough?" he went on.
"It's just this," replied the one addressed as Captain Temple (I recognized him as the officer who had sat on the piazza): "McCulough thinks to tie us down in some way, because he happens to own a few planks of the ship. Now I—"
The speaker had placed the light on the mantel-piece, and the other man did the same with his candle, snuffing it a little with his fingers as he did so; but what had broken off Captain Temple's speech was the sight he had caught of me sitting bolt-upright in the bed and blinking, I dare say, like a startled owl.