"Come, Dannie," says he, "what'll ye take t' drink?"
"A nip o' ginger-ale," says I, dolefully.
Cap'n Jack put his arm around the bar-maid. "Fetch Dannie," says he,
"the brand that comes from over-seas."
Off she went.
"Lord love us!" groans my uncle; "that's two."
"'Twill do un no harm, Nick," says Cap'n Jack. "You just dose un well
when you gets un back t' the Tickle."
"I will," says my uncle.
He did....
* * * * *
And we made a jovial night of it. Cap'n Jack would not let me off his
knee. Not he! He held me close and kindly; and while he yarned of the
passage to my uncle, and interjected strange wishes for a wife, he
whispered many things in my ear to delight me, and promised me, upon
his word, a sailing from St. John's to Spanish ports, when I was grown
old enough, if only I would come in that basket of a _Lost Hope_,
which I maintained I never would do. 'Twas what my uncle was used to
calling a lovely time; and, as for me, I wish I were a child again,
and Cap'n Jack were come in from the rain, and my uncle tipping the
bottle of Long Tom (though 'twere a scandal). Ay, indeed I do! That I
were a child again, used to tap-room bottles, and that big Cap'n Jack
had come in from the gale to tell me I was a brave lad in whom he
found a comfort neither of the solid land nor of water-side
companionship. But I did not think of Cap'n Jack that night, when my
uncle had stowed me away in my bed at the hotel; but, rather, in the
long, wakeful hours, through which I lay alone, I thought of Tom
Bull's question, "Where'd ye get them jools?"
I had never before been troubled--not once; always I had worn the
glittering stones without question.
"Where'd ye get them jools?"
I could not fall asleep: I repeated the twenty-third psalm, according
to my teaching; but still I could not fall asleep....