where I stand. Yet, sir, I've been hailing the Swash these five
minutes, and thankful am I to find some one at last who is on board
to answer me."

"What are your orders, Capt. Spike?"

"To see all clear for a start as soon as the flood makes. I shall go
through the Gate on the next young flood, and I hope you'll have all
the hands aboard in time. I see two or three of them up at that
Dutch beer-house, this moment, and can tell'em; in plain language,
if they come here with their beer aboard them, they'll have to go
ashore again."

"You have an uncommonly sober crew, Capt. Spike," answered the young
man, with great calmness. "During the whole time I have been with
them, I have not seen a man among them the least in the wind."

"Well, I hope it will turn out that I've an uncommonly sober mate in
the bargain. Drunkenness I abominate, Mr. Mulford, and I can tell
you, short metre, that I will not stand it."

"May I inquire if you ever saw me, the least in the world, under the
influence of liquor, Capt. Spike?" demanded the mate, rather than
asked, with a very fixed meaning in his manner.

"I keep no log-book of trifles, Mr. Mulford, and cannot say. No man
is the worse for bowsing out his jib when off duty, though a
drunkard's a thing I despise. Well, well--remember, sir, that the
Molly Swash casts off on the young flood, and that Rose Budd and the
good lady, her aunt, take passage in her, this v'y'ge."