Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/120

112 "How now, Captain!" cried he, in a guttural accent, and interlarding his discourse with certain Dutch graces, which, with our Reader's leave, we will omit, as being unable to spell them; "how now!—not gone yet!"

"No!—I start for the coast to-morrow; business keeps me to-day. I came to ask if Mellon may be fully depended on?"

"Ay!—honest to the back-bone!"

"And you are sure that, in spite of my late delays, he will not have left the village?"

"Sure!—what else can I be?—don't I know Jack Mellon these twenty years? He would lie like a log in a calm for ten months together, without moving a hair's-breadth, if he was under orders."

"And his vessel is swift, and well manned, in case of an officer's chase?"

"The Black Molly swift?—ask your grandmother. The Black Molly would outstrip a shark, and be dd to her!"

"Then good-bye, Janseen, there is something to keep your pipe alight; we shall not meet within