Tinker gave
them the cognac, and took the wheel. Then he became absorbed in
steering, and sternly rejected all further consideration of his gift;
he would have neither hand nor part in hocussing French
agriculturalists posing as mariners.
But for all his absorption in his steering, and his care to look past
them as they sat in more than fraternal affection on the deck, with the
bottle between them, it was somehow forced on him, probably by the
noise they made, that they proceeded from a gentle cheerfulness through
a wild and songful hilarity, broken by interludes in which either
described to the other with eloquent enthusiasm the charms of the lass
who loved him best, to a tearful melancholy, from which they were rapt
away into a sodden and stertorous slumber.
At the third snore Tinker turned to Elsie, who sat by him looking
rather scared by the changing humours of the agricultural mariners, and
said with a sardonic and ferocious smile, "The ship is ours."
At once they divested themselves of the hats of civilisation, and tied
round their heads the red handkerchiefs proper to their profession;
then he gave her the wheel, and going to the cabin, came back with a
black flag neatly embroidered in white with a skull and crossbones,
Dorothy's work, and sternly bade an imaginary quartermaster run up the
Jolly Roger.
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