"Oh," said my beauty, "come in;" and she opened the door, but still kept it
on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid
in beneath it, yet a common--sized man could not possibly have squeezed
himself through. The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to,
and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen
feet square, with a well sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over
against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall.
There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room--but no
tablecloth--at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather
whisky--faced savage, dressed in a shabby great--coat of the hodden grey
worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy
breeches, worsted stockings, and well--patched shoes; he was smoking a long
pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets
and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent
up a smoky steam that cast a halo round the lamp, that depended from the
roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of
coarse whale oil. They were, generally speaking, hardy, weather beaten
men, and the greater proportion half, or more than half drunk. When I
entered, I walked up to the landlord.

"Yo ho, my young un, whence and whither bound, my hearty?"

"The first don't signify much to you," said I, "seeing I have wherewithal
in the locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so,
old boy, let's have some grog, and then say if you can ship me with one of
them cowers that are lying alongside the quay?"

"My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has!" grumbled mine host.

"Why, my lad, we shall see to--morrow morning; but you gammons so bad about