Читать книгу Round the Galley Fire онлайн

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“They were dragging on their oars as if they would spring ’em, lying back until nothing but their noses was to be seen above the gunwale, and making the water fly in clouds over the cove in the starn as if prompt drowning was too good for him, and he was to be smothered slow. They dashed alongside, hooked on, and the fellow in the chimbley-pot hat comes scraping over the rail, shaking himself free o’ the water as he tumbled on to the deck like a Newfoundland dog.

“‘Just in time, captain,’ says he, with an impudent kind o’ smile, rummaging in his side-pocket; and with that he houts with a sort of dockiment, and hands it to the skipper.

“‘What’s this?’ says the skipper, smelling round the paper as it might be, but never offering to touch it.

“‘Only a horder for you to return to the bosom of your family,’ he says, ‘as the date o’ your sailing’s not yet fixed.’

“‘Isn’t it?’ says the captain, breathing short. ‘Who are you, and what d’ye want?’

“‘I’m a bailiff,’ says the man; ‘and I’m here to take charge o’ this wessel, pending the haction that’s been entered against her in the Hadmiralty side o’ the County Court by the schooner as ye was in collision with.’