'How do you do, Conway?' said Leaddropper, entering the house, as the commander descended the stairs. 'Fine gal that of yours!'
He walked into the dining-room. The commander followed him.
'Oh, that I was the man I looked, and felt, when the last century was eighty!' He seated himself.
'You were not just hatched even at that,' said the commander, walking up and down the little room. 'What's the news?'
'For my part I've got not a stroke,' said the old pilot, blandly following with motions of his blood-stained eyes the movements of the commander, as he placed a decanter of rum upon the table, together with a jug of water and tumblers taken from the sideboard.
'Help yourself,' said the commander.
The pilot did so. The commander took a drop, lighted his pipe, and the pilot drank his health.
'Not a stroke of news,' continued old Leaddropper. 'But stay! Blamed if there isn't a talk of some one going about working up a crew out of our little town.'
'That'll be Jackman,' said the commander. 'Certain. What can he want a crew for, and why is he found in the Devil's Walk?'