best times and the hardest times of my life at sea, that's certain! I
was just thinking it over when you spoke. I'll tell you some stories one
day or 'nother that'll please you. Land! you've no idea what tricks some
of those wild fellows will be up to. Now, saying they fetch home a cargo
of wines and they want a drink; they've got a trick so they can get it.
Saying it's champagne, they'll fetch up a basket, and how do you suppose
they'll get into it?"

Of course we didn't know.

"Well, every basket will be counted, and they're fastened up particular,
so they can tell in a minute if they've been tampered with; and neither
must you draw the corks if you could get the basket open. I suppose ye
may have seen champagne, how it's all wired and waxed. Now, they take a
clean tub, them fellows do, and just shake the basket and jounce it up
and down till they break the bottles and let the wine drain out; then
they take it down in the hold and put it back with the rest, and when
the cargo is delivered there's only one or two whole bottles in that
basket, and there's a dreadful fuss about its being stowed so foolish."
The captain told this with an air of great satisfaction, but we did not
show the least suspicion that he might have assisted at some such
festivity.

"Then they have a way of breaking into a cask. It won't do to start the
bung, and it won't do to bore a hole where it can be seen, but they're
up to that: they slip back one of the end hoops and bore two holes
underneath it, one for the air to go in and one for the liquor to come
out, and after they get all out they want they put in some spigots and
cut them down close to the stave, knock back the hoop again, and there
ye are, all trig."