“Do they give you four bowls?” gasped Lemuel in astonishment.
“They give you four barrels, if you can hold it,” replied the other proudly; “and some the mates can, pretty near. They got an awful tank, as a general rule, the pards has. There ain't anything mean about this house. They don't scamp the broth, and they don't shab the measure. I do wish you could see that refrigerator, oncet. Never been much at sea, have you, mate?”
Lemuel said he had never been at sea at all.
The other leaned forward with his elbows on each side of his bowl, and lazily broke his hard-tack into it. “Well, I have. I was shipped when I was about eleven years old by a shark that got me drunk. I wanted to ship, but I wanted to ship on an American vessel for New Orleans. First thing I knowed I turned up on a Swedish brig bound for Venice. Ever been to It'ly?”
“No,” said Lemuel.
“Well, I hain't but oncet. Oncet is enough for me. I run away, while I was in Venice, and went ashore—if you can call it ashore; it's all water, and you got to go round in boats: gondolas they call 'em there—and went to see the American counsul, and told him I was an American boy, and tried to get him to get me off. But he couldn't do anything. If you ship under the Swedish flag you're a Swede, and the whole United States couldn't get you off. If I'd 'a' shipped under the American flag I'd 'a' been an American, I don't care if I was born in Hottentot. That's what the counsul said. I never want to see that town ag'in. I used to hear songs about Venice—'Beautiful Venice, Bride of the Sea;' but I think it's a kind of a hole of a place. Well, what I started to say was that when I turn up in Boston, now,—and I most generally do,—I don't go to no sailor boardin'-house; I break for the Wayfarer's Lodge, every time. It's a temperance house, and they give you the worth o' your money.”
“Come! Hurry up!” said the attendant. He wiped the table impatiently with his towel, and stood waiting for Lemuel and the other to finish. All the rest had gone.
“Don't you be too fresh, pard,” said the mate, with the effect of standing upon his rights. “Guess if you was on your third bowl, you wouldn't hurry.”
The attendant smiled. “Don't you want to lend us a hand with the dishes?” he asked.
“Who's sick?” asked the other in his turn.