Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/226

 CHAPTER XXV

THREE PRESSED MEN

While the occupants of the parlour were sipping punch those of the taproom had gone systematically through the different stages of inebriety—the friendly, the argumentative, the captious, the communicative, the sentimental, the quarrelsome, the maudlin-affectionate, and the extremely drunk. By nightfall, neither Smoke-Jack, Bottle-Jack, nor Slap-Jack could handle a clay-pipe without breaking it, nor fix their eyes steadily on the candle for five consecutive moments. Notwithstanding, however, the many conflicting opinions that had been broached during their sitting, there were certain points on which they agreed enthusiastically—that they were the three finest fellows under the sun, that there was no calling like seamanship, no element like salt water, and no craft in which any one of them had yet sailed so lively in a seaway as this, which seemed now to roll and pitch and stagger beneath their besotted senses. With a confirmed impression, varied only by each man's own experience, that they were weathering a gale under considerable difficulties, in a low latitude, and that it was their watch on deck, though they kept it somewhat unaccountably below, all three had gone through the abortive ceremony they called "pricking for the softest plank," had pulled their rough sea-coats over their heads, and lain down on the floor among the spittoons, to sleep out the dreamless sleep of intoxication.

Long before midnight, Butter-faced Bob, looking in, well satisfied, beheld his customers of the afternoon now transformed into actual goods and chattels, bales of bone