Page:Morley roberts--Blue Peter--sea yarns.djvu/94

78 to move swiftly down the smooth dark waters of the Willamette while the early lights of the town still gleamed and the snowy peak of Mount Hood was edged with roses in a rosy dawn.

"’Is name is Juggins!"

He slapped his thigh and laughed. They lay that night off Astoria, and before the towline was again made fast to pull her out over the great Columbia bar the new hand was put aboard in the usual condition of alcoholic coma with not a little laudanum mixed with it. He was stowed in a bunk in the fo'c'sle, where he lay just as they threw him. But Jack and Corlett were as nervous now as two greenhorns on a royal yard.

"I'm all of a bally twitter, I am," said Jack Eales. "D'ye know, Corlett, I ain't sure we ain't done after all. I don't believe I ever see this joker before. Brogger 'ad a beard."

"And Lant and Gulliver 'ad a razor," said Corlett.

"Brogger was pippy and pasty and white as—oh—as white," urged Eales, "and this josser is as black as a mulatter."

"Walnuts grow in Oregon," said the wise Corlett. "D'ye think we might let the crowd into the racket?"