Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/211

 at accounts, and every time he added a column afresh, and found its result differed from his previous calculation, he swore a French oath in a whisper and began again. It was nearly dusk before the landlord came in with the candles, when his guest looked up, as if much relieved at a temporary interruption of work.

Butter-faced Bob was a plausible fellow enough, well fitted for the situation he filled, crimp, publican, free-trader, and, on occasion, receiver of stolen goods. From the seaman in the tap, to the skipper in the parlour, he prided himself on his facility in making conversation to his customers, saying the right thing to each; or, as he expressed it, "oiling the gear so as the crank should work easy."

Setting down the candles, therefore, he proceeded to lubrication without delay.

"Sorry shall we be to lose ye, Captain! and indeed it will drive me out of the public line at last, to see the way as the best o' friends must part. My dame, she says to me, it was but this blessed day as I set down to my nooning, says she, Bob, says she, whatever we shall do when the Captain's gone foreign, says she, I, for one, can't tell no more than the dead. You step round to the quay, says she, when you've a-taken a drink, and see if 'The Bashful Maid' ha'n't histed her blue-Peter at the fore, and the Captain he'll make a fair wind o' this here sou'-wester, see if he won't, and maybe weigh at the ebb; an' it'll break my heart, let alone the chil'en's, to wish him a good voyage, it will. She's about ready for sea, Captain, now; I see them gettin' the fresh water aboard myself."

The Captain, as his host called him, smiled good-*humouredly.

"Your dame will have many a better lodger than I have been, Bob," said he, fixing his bold eyes on the landlord, which the latter, who never seemed comfortable under an honest man's gaze, avoided by peering into every corner of the room; "one that will stay longer with you, and entertain more friends than I have done. What of that? The heaviest purse makes the best lodger, and the highest score, the merriest landlord, at every hostelry in Europe. Well, I shall be ready for sea now, when I've got my complement; but I'm not going to cruise in the"—here the speaker