“Not a thing. ’Pon my honor. The last I remember is that after waiting a while for you I fell in with a pleasant fellow on the wharf who wanted me to stroll uptown with him. He said we would not be gone more than fifteen minutes. We stopped in at some kind of a place to get a drink. He treated me, then of course I had to treat him, and after that I don’t remember anything more. What vile stuff it must have been! Ugh! my mouth tastes like brass and my head feels as though it were made of red-hot lead.” “Well,” said Breeze, “that drink of yours has got us into about as mean a scrape as I know of, and if it hasn’t completely ruined my reputation and broken my mother’s heart, I shall be thankful.” “My dear fellow, you don’t mean to tell me it is as bad as all that!” exclaimed Wolfe, now sitting up, and with a tone of deep concern. “It doesn’t seem possible. I wish you would explain what you mean.” “There isn’t time now,” answered Breeze; “the cook called breakfast ten minutes ago, and we’ll have to hurry if we want to get any. You’d better get on deck and douse your head in a bucket of cold water. It will do you good. After breakfast I’ll tell you the whole story, and then we can make up our minds what to do.” The men who sat at the breakfast-table with Breeze and Wolfe regarded them curiously, winked slyly to one another, and made a few jokes in low tones upon their appearance, but nobody spoke to them. After the meal was over, as no particular attention was paid to them, they found a sheltered place forward, away up in the eyes of the schooner. There Breeze related to Wolfe all that had happened during the preceding night, bringing his story down to that morning, and not omitting the remarks the skipper had made to the effect that he had been intoxicated. Before he had finished, Wolfe was worked up into a state of furious anger. “You miserable low-lived scoundrel!” he muttered through his clinched teeth, shaking his fist in the direction of Hank Hoffer, whom he now recognized as the one who had played him such a mean trick the night before; “I’ll pay you off for this; see if I don’t.” “It was a mean trick, and I hope he’ll live to be sorry for it,” said Breeze; “but don’t you think you were almost as much to blame as he?” “I!” exclaimed Wolfe, in surprise; “how do you mean? By being so soft as to let that fellow get the best of me?” “I mean by having anything to do with him when you found out that he wanted you to drink with him.” “Why, man! I thought he only wanted me to take a glass with him in a friendly way.” “And do you think it is right to take that kind of a glass?” “Certainly; where’s the harm?”