“’Tis a hard life, Mr. McAlnwick, an’ we’ve just got to make the best of it.”
“But, Mr. Honna, what is the best of it?”
“This! Give us your glass. One more, an’ Nicholas is makin’ a Stonewall Jackson in the panthry. He’ll be in in a minute.”
In a minute Nicholas arrives with a jug. Nicholas is the Steward, at sea since ’69, a bronzed Greek from Salonika, a believer in dreams and sound investments at six per cent. He brings in a Lloyd’s News, arrived by the last mail.
“Ah!” The Mate is certainly making the best of it. What are the exact components of the drink I cannot determine, but the resultant is without blemish; eggs, milk, brandy, rum—all these are in it, and the Mate’s tongue loosens.
“Have you seen this about ze Lorenzo, mister?” asks Nicholas.
“What’s that?”
Nicholas (reading): “‘Ze s.s. Lorenzo, bound from New Yawk to Cuba with coke, met with heavy gales off Cape Hatteras, and has put back into Norfolk in a disabled condition. Two blades of her propeller are broken, and she is leaking badly amidships. She is to undergo a special survey before proceeding further.’”
The Mate’s visage is wrinkled, his mouth is pursed up as he sets down his glass and adjusts his spectacles to read, and he nods his head.
“See, now, ’tis two years, two years an’ a half, since I left her. Nicholas, you were there then, were ye not?”