“Wot I says, is this here. The sea was made for them as sails upon it, and you ain’t a-goin’ to tell me as it can be portioned out into gardens an’ orchards, and tobacco plantations, like the dirt we calls land. Werry well, if the sea be free, them as sails upon it can make free with wot it offers them. If in case now, as I’m look-out man, we’ll say, in the maintop, and I makes a galleon of her, for instance, deep in the water under easy sail, you’re not to tell me as because she shows Spanish colours I’m not to take what I want out of her. Stow that, mates, for it’s clean nonsense! The way old Kidd acted was this here—First, he got her weather-gage; then he brought her to with a gun, civil and reasonable; arter that, whether she showed fight, or whether she showed friendly, he boarded her, and when he’d taken all he wanted, captain, crew, and passengers just walked the plank, easy and quiet, and no words about it.” “And the craft?” asked Slap-Jack, breathless with interest in the old pirate’s reminiscences. “Scuttled her!” answered the other, conclusively. “Talking’s dry work. Let’s have some more beer.” CHAPTER XXIII THE PARLOUR-LODGER There was a tolerably snug parlour under the roof of the Fox and Fiddle, notwithstanding that its dimensions were small, its floor uneven, and its ceiling so low that a solitary inmate could not but feel enlivened by the company of the landlord’s family, who inhabited the rooms overhead. This apartment, which was usually occupied by some skipper from beyond seas, put forward certain claims to magnificence as well as comfort; and although the vaguest attempts at cleanliness seemed to have been suppressed, there was no little pretension apparent in the furniture, the chimney ornaments, and the “History of the Prodigal Son” on the walls. China shepherdesses stood on the mantelpiece, surmounted by the backbone of a shark. Two gilt chairs, with frayed velvet cushions, supported an unframed representation of a three-decker, with every available sail set, and British colours flying at the main, stemming a grass-green sea, under a sky of intense blue. A contracted square of real Turkey carpet covered a few feet in the middle, and the rest of the floor, ornamented at regular intervals by spittoons, stood inch-deep in dust. The hearth could not have been swept for days, nor the smouldering fire raked out for hours; but on a mahogany sideboard, that had obviously sustained at least one sea-voyage, stood a dozen different drinking-measures, surrounding a punch-bowl capacious enough to have baptized a full-grown pirate.