. . .s bowed legs in spite of the drink obvious in his face and speech, and he had a roving gleed black eye. I had never clapped gaze on him in all my life before.

“Is that the way ye speak to Dan Risk, ye swab?” said he, ludicrously affecting a dignity that ill suited with his hiccough. “What’s the good of me being a skipper if every linen-draper out of Fife can cut into my quarter on my own deck?”

“This is no’ your quarter-deck, man, if ye were sober enough to ken it,” said I; “and I’m no linen-draper from Fife or anywhere else.”

And then the brute, with his hands thrust to the depth of his pockets, staggered me as if he had done it with a blow of his fist.

“No,” said he, with a very cunning tone, “ye’re no linen-draper perhaps, but—ye’re maybe no sae decent a man, young Greig.”

It was impossible for me to conce. . . Read More