“Where’s a likely tailor’s?” asked the skipper, looking round.
“What for?” asked the mate.
“I’m going to get some things for Cap’n Gething,” said the other. “He’s hardly the figure to meet his family as he is.”
“Why didn’t you bring him with us?” asked the mate. “How about a fit?”
“He wouldn’t hear of it,” said the skipper, pausing in deep contemplation of three wax boys in a tailor’s window. “He’s an independent sort of man; but if I buy the clothes and take ’em aboard he can hardly refuse to wear ’em.”
He led the way into the shop and asked to see some serge suits. At the mate’s instigation he asked to see some more. At the mate’s further instigation he asked whether that was all they had got, and being told that it was, looked at them all over again. It is ever a difficult thing to fit an absent man, but he and the mate tried on every jacket in the hope of finding a golden mean, until the mate, dropping his lighted cigar in the coat-sleeve of one, and not finding it as soon as the tailor could have desired, the latter lost all patience and insisted upon their taking that one.
“It’s all right,” said the mate, as they left the shop with the parcel; “it’s only the lining. I’d fixed my mind on that one, too, from the first.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so, then?” said the skipper.
“Got it cheaper,” said the mate, with a wink. “I’d bet you, if it could only be known, if we’d been suited at first he’d ha’ wanted ten bob more for it.”
It was quite dark by now, and after buying a cap and one or two other small articles, the mate led the way into a tavern for another drink.