Crimp rested the glass on the rail and put his sour face to it. ‘Yes,’ he exclaimed, ‘that’s ’Arry, sure enough,’ and without another word he returned to the waist and went on coolly directing the scrubbing and swabbing of the men.
‘Mr. Monson,’ said Finn, who had taken the glass from Crimp, and extending it to me as he spoke, ‘just take a view of them figures on the fo’k’sle, sir, will ’ee? There’s three of ’em standing alone close against the cathead. They ain’t blue-jackets, are they?’
But at that instant we were hailed, and I forgot Finn’s request in listening to what was said.
‘Schooner ahoy!’
‘Hallo!’ answered Finn.
‘What schooner is that and where are you bound?’ cried the man on the barque’s quarter-deck in a voice whose sulky rasping note so exactly resembled Jacob Crimp’s when he exerted his lungs, that I observed some of our sailors staring with astonishment, as though they imagined Muffin had gone to work again.
‘The “Bride” of Southampton on a cruise,’ responded Finn, adding in an aside to me: ‘no use in singing out about the Cape of Good Hope, sir.’
There was a brief pause, then Finn bawled: ‘What ship are you?’
‘The “’Liza Robbins,”’ was the answer, ‘of and for Liverpool from Hitchaboo with a cargo of gewhany.’