‘Whoy yes,’ he answered, ‘bigger by fourteen or fifteen ton, but Oi dunno about foiner. The “Shark” has the sweeter lines, Oi allow; but that there “Bride,”’ said he with a toss of his head in the direction of the yacht, sitting with his back upon her as he was, ‘has got the ocean-going qualities of a line-of-battle ship.’
‘Take a race between them,’ said I, ‘which would prove the better ship?’
‘Whoy, in loight airs the “Shark,” Oi daresay, ’ud creep ahead. In ratching, too, in small winds she’d go to wind’ard of t’other as though she was warping that way. But in anything loike a stiff breeze yonder “Bride” ’ud forereach upon and weather the “Shark” as easy as swallowing a pint o’ yale, or my name’s Noah, which it ain’t.’
‘The “Shark” has sailed?’
‘Oy, last week.’
‘Where bound to, d’ye know?’
‘Can’t say, Oi’m sure. Oi’ve heerd she was hired by an army gent, and that, wherever his cruise may carry him to, he ain’t going to be in a hurry to finish it.’
‘Does he sail alone? Or, perhaps, he takes his wife or children with him?’
‘Well,’ said the waterman, pausing on his oars a minute or so with a grin, whilst his damp oyster-like eyes met in a kind of squint on my face, ‘the night afore the “Shark” sailed Oi fell in with one of her crew, a chap named Bobby Watt; and on my asking him if this here military gent was a-going to make the voyage alone he shuts one oye and says “Jim,” he says, Jim being one of my names, not Noah, “Jim,” says he, “when soldiers go to sea,” says he, “do they take pairosols with ’em? and are bonnet boxes to be found ’mongst their luggage? Tell ye what it is, Jim,” he says, “they can call yachting an innocent divarsion, but bet your life, Jim,” says he, “’taint all as moral as it looks!” by which Oi understood,’ said the waterman, falling to his oars again, ‘that the military gent hain’t sailed alone in the “Shark,” nor took his wife with him neither, if so be he’s a wedded man.’