let him speak, in order that the truth of this matter may not be hid, like
a marling-spike jammed between a brace-block and a blackened yard."

"Here, then, is the man," returned Fid; and, stretching out his arm, he
seized Scipio by the collar, and drew him, without ceremony, into the
centre of the circle, that had opened around the two disputants "There is
a man for you, who has made one more voyage between this and Africa than
myself, for the reason that he was born there. Now, answer as if you were
hallooing from a lee-earing, S'ip, under what sail would you heave-to a
ship, on the coast of your native country, with the danger of a white
squall at hand?"

"I no heave-'em-to," said the black, "I make 'em scud."

"Ay, boy; but, to be in readiness for the puff, would you jam her up under
a mainsail, or let her lie a little off under a fore course?"

"Any fool know dat," returned Scipio, grumly and evidently tired already
of being thus catechised.

"If you want 'em fall off, how you'm expect, in reason, he do it under a
main course? You answer me dat, misser Dick."

"Gentlemen," said Nightingale, looking about him with an air of great
gravity, "I put it to your Honours, is it genteel behaviour to bring a
nigger, in this out-of-the-way fashion, to give an opinion in the teeth of
a white man?"

This appeal to the wounded dignity of the company was answered by a common
murmur. Scipio, who was prepared to maintain, and would have maintained,