for the rest o' your days, an' pick your teeth at the crowd.
And look ye here." He waved a hand around the room. "I'm old Danny
Coffin, ain't I? poor old drunken Danny Coffin, eh? Yet cast an eye
about ye. Nice fittin's, ben't they? Hitch down my coat off the peg
there; feel the cloth of it; take it between finger and thumb.
Ay, I don't live upon air, nor keep house an' fixtures upon nothin'
at all. There--if you want more proof!" He dived a hand into his
trouser-pocket, and held out a golden coin under my nose.
"There! that very dollar came from the island, and I'm offerin' you
the fellows to it by the thousand. Why? says you. Because, says I,
you're a good lad, and I've took a fancy to see you in Parlyment.
That's why. An' it's no return I'm askin' you, but just to believe!"

He made for the back door again, and opened it, letting in the
sunlight; but the sunlight fell in two slanting rays, one on either
side of a dark object which all but filled the entrance, blocking out
my view of the back court beyond. It was the stern of a tall boat.

The boat, in fact, filled the small back court, leaving an alley-way
scarcely more than two feet wide along either party-wall. She rested
on the stocks, about three-parts finished, in shape very like a
whaleboat, and in measurement--so Captain Coffin informed me, with a
proprietary wave of the hand--some twenty-nix feet over all, with a
beam of nine feet six inches amidships. And even to a boy's eye she
showed herself a pretty model, though (as I say) unfinished, with a
foot and more of her ribs standing up bare and awaiting the top
strakes.

"Designed her myself, Brooks. Eh, but your friend Dan'l Coffin has
an eye for the shape of a boat, though no hand at pencilling, nor