trim of her generally. When the punch came he filled three glasses to the brim, and observed with great solemnity—
"My sarvice to you, shipmate, and your consort. The sooner you two gets spliced the better. No offence, young woman. If I'd ever come across such a craft as yourn, mate, I'd have been spliced myself. But these here doesn't swim to windward in shoals like black fish, and I was never a chap to take and leap overboard promiscuous after a blessed mermyed 'acause she hailed me off a reef. That's why I'm a driftin' to leeward this day. I'll take it as a favour, young woman, if you'll sip from my glass!"
This was the longest speech Slap-Jack ever remembered from his shipmate, and was valued accordingly. It was obvious that Smoke-Jack, contrary to his usual principles, which were anti-matrimonial, looked on his old friend's projected alliance with the utmost favour. The three found themselves extremely pleasant company. Alice, indeed, moved in and out on her household duties, rendered the more engrossing that her aunt was occupied in the kitchen, but the two seamen stuck to the leeside of their bowl of punch till it was emptied, and never ceased smoking the whole time. They had so much to talk about, so many old stories to recall, questions to ask, and details to furnish on their own different fortunes since they met, to say nothing of the toasts that accompanied each separate glass.
They drank 'The Bashful Maid' twice, and Alice three times, in the course of their merry-making. Now it came to pass that during their conversation the name of Captain Bold was mentioned by Slap-Jack, as an individual whose head it would give him extreme gratification to punch on some fitting occasion; and that his friend showed some special interest in the subject appeared by the cock of his eye and the removal of his pipe from between his lips.
"Bold!" repeated Smoke-Jack, as if taxing his memory. "Captain Bold you calls him. Not a real skipper, but only a soger captain, belike?"
"Not even good enough for a soger to my thinking," answered the other, in a tone of disgust. "Look ye here, brother, I've heard some of the old hands say, though, mind ye, I doesn't go along with them, that sogers is like
