"
"Coffee, skipper, coffee. The shipwrecked mariners demand refreshment,"
boomed Thomas.
Ah! that coffee! Thick, bitter-sweet, greasy with long stewing! What a
fluid it is--or rather what a solid! Its insolent stodginess has only a
surface resemblance to a fluid; yet it is a comfort on snowy mornings,
and our wanderers took to it kindly.
Lewis had laid himself out to be merry, and several grinning faces
peered from the bunks with kindly welcome as he took his seat on a
rickety fish-box. The skipper asked, "Shall the steward fetch your bread
in here, sir? You can't manage ours."
"All right. How are the men aft?"
"The young fellow from the _Achilles_ was jabbering a bit again. By the
way, you knew Tom Betts had come away in the old _Achilles_, didn't you,
sir?"
"What Tom Betts? Oh yes. Man with concussion of the brain, wasn't it?"
"So I heerd, sir. He told everybody at home how you saved him, and when
he said how he thought he'd gone to heaven he set all the women in the
Mission Hall a-pipin' of their eye. He's on the Lord's side now, sir.
You done that." "Well, I'm a queer customer to do anything of the kind,
skipper. I'm only glad I got him sewed up soon enough, but my business
ends there."
"You're jest as good as some as makes a frap about bein' good. I think,
sir, you put's on some of that light-come-go-away kind of a game."
"Never mind; we'll only hope we'll have no more cases like that exactly.
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