I turned away to laugh, and soon after left the dance hall with Mr. Bunker. As I passed out of the door I saw Farrell repeating his dose at the bar, and was apprehensive that he would get into trouble, for I knew that with him the transition was short and easy from the poetical mood into the pugilistic.
It was even as I feared. When the ship's boat came in, the watch were all on hand but Farrell, and on inquiry I found he was in "durance vile." It seems a Chileno had taken the liberty to address some words to "Whon-eater," which Farrell resented as an undue familiarity. He hadn't, of course, the remotest idea what was said, but he was in the warlike stage then and spoiling for a row. So he struck out from the shoulder, and was at once seized and marched off to the lock-up. He came off about the middle of the forenoon, having been taken before the magistrate and fined for assault. The old man had, of course, paid it and sent him on board. He had found pretty rough quarters, he said, in the lock-up, and had been nearly "flayed alive by the murderin' flays."
One day's liberty was much like another, and the same old haunts were visited and revisited. We had four days on shore for each watch, and when the starboard watch came off the last time, Burley, the sea-lawyer, was missing, having doubtless deserted. He had been long enough in one ship, I suppose; and, besides, he had lost his prestige among his shipmates, and was looked upon with contempt. We all felt that we could spare him without a pang. To fill the vacancy, a Sandwich Island native called Peter was shipped, a man who had seen considerable service, having steered a boat in two or three ships, and who murdered English tolerably well. We took our anchor in the afternoon with a smart breeze from the southward, and before the sun went down we were once more tossing on the long swells of the broad Pacific.
"Well," said old Jeff, as we were stowing the anchors, "I reckon that's the last we'll see of Turkeywarner this v'y'ge. I think the old man'll work off to the westward, and finally go down to 'the Groups.'"
"What makes you think so?" said I.
"Why, the old man as good as told me before we left home that he should work down that way. He never was down there before nor I neither. I've been three v'y'ges with the old man, and we've always got our oil on Peru, and Chili, and the Galleypaguses. We never went no further'n the off-shore ground."
"Why should he go so far out of his old tracks where he has always been successful?" I inquired.
"Well, you see, Father Grafton he's been down there last voyage, and Mr. Dunham, too, and they have great faith in the 'Groups,' and that starts the old man. Another thing makes me think so; he's fetched out a big stock of tobacker this v'y'ge. I never knew him to have so much before, and he hasn't sold a pound of it yet. It's all there in the run, and that means he's keepin it to trade down among the 'Groups.' He hasn't said nothin' to me about it lately, though; I've kept thinking he would,' cause he generally lets me know beforehand where he's going."
It was one of Jeff's harmless peculiarities to pretend to considerable knowledge of cabinet secrets, and to affect to be "high in the confidence of the administration," as the newspaper correspondents have it.
"Well," said he, "Burley he's given us the slip and I reckon nobody'll mourn much about the loss of him. I must say I got disappointed in that man. I thought he was a good sailor man, and all I was fearful of was that he would do something desprit. I thought he had courage enough to make good his words. But it turned out that he was more of a coward than I am, and that's needless," said Jeff with a grin; "and as for his duty, he was neither sailor nor soger."