Page:Kidnapped (1895 Cassell).djvu/100

 here was a man I would rather call my friend than my enemy.

The captain, too, was taking his observations, but rather of the man’s clothes than his person. And to be sure, as soon as he had taken off the great-coat, he showed forth mighty fine for the round-house of a merchant brig: having a hat with feathers, a red waistcoat, breeches of black plush, and a blue coat with silver buttons and handsome silver lace; costly clothes, though somewhat spoiled with the fog and being slept in.

“I’m vexed, sir, about the boat,” says the captain.

“There are some pretty men gone to the bottom,” said the stranger, “that I would rather see on the dry land again than half a score of boats.”

“Friends of yours?” said Hoseason.

“You have none such friends in your country,” was the reply. “They would have died for me like dogs.”

“Well, sir,” said the captain, still watching hin, “there are more men in the world than boats to put them in.”

“And that’s true, too,” cried the other, “and ye seem to be a gentleman of great penetration.”

“I have been in France, sir,” says the captain, so that it was plain he meant more by the words than showed upon the face of them.

“Well, sir,” says the other, “and so has many a pretty man, for the matter of that.”