"Sixty! Captain, you said fifty."
"Did I? Well, but that was the first time of asking. Come, quick,--my young gallant,--or I shall hoist it up to seventy. I say, boatswain, tell the smith to send me a hammer and a few tenpenny nails: I've a customer here that's wanting to cheat me; and I see I must nail him to the mast, before we shall balance books. But stop a minute: I'll tell you what, Jessamy,--if you'll enter aboard the Fleurs de lys, I'll let you off for the money."
"I fear, Captain, that your work would be too much for my constitution: I am hardly strong enough to undertake such severe duty."
"Not strong enough? Oh! the dragon! my darling, what should ail you? I'll make you strong enough by to-morrow morning. Just hang him up an hour to the mast head, salt him, take him down, pickle him, hoist him up in the main tops to season, then give him some flap-dragon and biscuit, and I'll be bound there's not a lubber that lives but will be cured into a prime salt-water article. But come, sixty francs!"
Bertram hesitated for a moment: during which Captain le Harnois rose; turned on his heel; placed himself astride the carronade with a large goblet of brandy in his right hand; and with the air of an old Cupid who was affecting to look amiable and to warble, but in reality more like a Boreas who was growling, he opened the vast chasm of his mouth and began to sing a sentimental love song.
Bertram perceived that, as the brandy lowered, Captain le Harnois' demand would be likely to rise; and therefore paid the money without further demur.
"And now, my sweet boy," said Captain le Harnois, "what do you think of the Fleurs de lys? Tight sea-boat! isn't she, and a little better managed than the Halcyon, eh?--Things go on in another guess fashion here than they did on board your d---d steam boat? Different work on my deck, eh?"
"Very different work, indeed, Captain le Harnois!"
"Aye, a d---d deal different, my boy. I know what it is I'm speaking to, when I speak to my lads: but I'm d---d if a man knows what he's speaking to, when he speaks to a boiler."
During this speech Bertram was descending the ship's side: when he had seated himself in the boat, he looked up; and, seeing the Captain lounging over the taffarel, he said by way of parting speech--