,' says the cap'n, very meaching.
'I understood that there wouldn't be no objection made.' 'Well, you made
a mistake,' says the other, laughing; 'guess I'd better scratch this
out.' And it wasn't long before the cap'n met the one who had put him up
to doing it, and he give him a blowing up for getting him into such a
fix. 'Land sakes alive!' says he, 'were you fool enough to set it down
in the account? Why, I put mine in, so many bolts of Russia duck.'"

Captain Sands seemed to enjoy this reminiscence, and to our
satisfaction, in a few minutes, after he had offered to take the oars,
he went on to tell us another story.

"Why, as for cheating, there's plenty of that all over the world. The
first v'y'ge I went into Havana as master of the Deerhound, she had
never been in the port before and had to be measured and recorded, and
then pay her tonnage duties every time she went into port there
afterward, according to what she was registered on the custom-house
books. The inspector he come aboard, and he went below and looked round,
and he measured her between decks; but he never offered to set down any
figgers, and when we came back into the cabin, says he, 'Yes--yes--good
ship! you put one bloon front of this eye, _so!_' says he, 'an' I not
see with him; and you put one more doubloon front of other eye, and how
you think I see at all what figger you write?' So I took his book and I
set down her measurements and made her out twenty ton short, and he took
his doubloons and shoved 'em into his pocket. There, it isn't what you
call straight dealing, but everybody done it that dared, and you'd eat
up all the profits of a v'y'ge and the owners would just as soon you'd
try a little up-country air, if you paid all those dues according to
law. Tonnage was dreadful high and wharfage too, in some ports, and
they'd get your last cent some way or 'nother if ye weren't sharp.

"Old Cap'n Carew, uncle to them ye see to meeting, did a smart thing in
the time of the embargo. Folks got tired of it, and it was dreadful hard
times; ships rotting at the wharves, and Deephaven never was quite the
same afterward, though the old place held out for a good while before
she let go as ye see her now. You'd 'a' had a hard grip on't when I was
a young man to make me believe it would ever be so dull here. Well,
Cap'n Carew he bought an old brig that was lying over by East Parish,
and he began fitting her up and loading her for the West Indies, and the
f