"Diable porte I'amour," whispered Captain Transom.
"Swallowed a Scotch pint of salt water to a certainty--run, Pilfer,
bring me some brandy--gout will be into my stomach, sure as fate--feel
him now--run, Pilfer, run, or gout will beat you--a dead heat that will
be!" And he keckled at his small joke very complacently.
We had him carried by our people to his lodgings, where, after shifting
and brandying to some tune, he took his place at the breakfast table,
and did the honours with his usual amenity and warm heartedness.
After breakfast Peregrine remembered, what the sly rogue had never
forgotten I suspect, that he was engaged to dine with his friend Mr
Pepperpot Wagtail, in Kingston.
"But it don't signify, Wagtail will be delighted to see you, Tom
hospitable fellow Wagtail--and, now I recollect myself, Fyall and Aaron
Bang are to be there; dang it, were it not for the gout, we should have
a night on't!"
After breakfast we started in a canoe for Kingston, touching at the
Firebrand for my kit.
Moses Yerk, the unpoetical first lieutenant, was standing well forward
on the quarterdeck as I passed over the side to get into the canoe, with
the gunroom steward following me, carrying my kit under his arm.
"I say, Tom, good for you, one lark after another."
"Don't like that fellow," quoth Whiffle; "he is quarrelsome in his drink
for a thousand, I know it by the cut of his jib.
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