hat shall part us."

"Then, abandon your habit of making free with the property of others."

"I abandon nothing. No man can say he ever knowed me to quit a deck while
a plank stuck to the beams; and shall I abandon, as you call it, my
rights? What is the mighty matter, that all hands must be called to see an
old sailor punished? You gave a lubberly fisherman, a fellow who has never
been in deeper water than his own line will sound you gave him, I say, a
glittering Spaniard, just for the use of a bit of a skiff for the night,
or, mayhap, for a small reach into the morning. Well, what does Dick do?
He says to himself--for d----e if he's any blab to run round a ship
grumbling at his officer--so he just says to himself, 'That's too much;'
and he looks about, to find the worth of it in some of the fisherman's
neighbours. Money can be eaten; and, what is better, it may be drunk;
therefore, it is not to be pitched overboard with the cook's ashes. I'll
warrant me, if the truth could be fairly come by, it would be found that,
as to the owners of this here yawl, and that there skiff, their mothers
are cousins, and that the dollar will go in snuff and strong drink among
the whole family--so, no great harm done, after all."

Wilder made an impatient gesture to the other to obey, and walked up the
bank, while he had time to comply. Fid never disputed a positive and
distinct order, though he often took so much discretionary latitude in
executing those which were less precise. He did not hesitate, therefore,
to return the boat; but he did not carry his subordination so far as to do
it without complaint. When this act of justice was performed, Wilder
entered the skiff; and, seeing that his companions were seated at their
oars, he bade them to pull down the harbour, admonishing them, at the same
time, to make as little noise as possible.

"The night I rowed you into Louisbourg, a-reconnoitring," said Fid,
thrusting his left hand into his bosom, while, with his right, he applied
sufficient force to the light oar to make the skiff glide swiftly over the
water--"that night we muffled every thing even to our tongues. When there
is occasion to put stoppers on the mouths of a boat's crew, why, I'm not
the man to gainsay it; but, as I am one of them that thinks tongues were
just as much made to talk with, as the sea was made to live on, I uphold
rational conversation in sober society. S'ip, you Guinea where are you
shoving the skiff to? here