aback at the first sight, Lord bless 'em!
Know me? Not likely. And as for me, when I found her such a lovely
woman--by the feel of her 'and and arm!--you might have knocked me down
with a feather. But here's where it is, you see: when you've been
knocking about on blue water for a matter of two and forty year,
shipwrecked here, and blown up there, and everywhere out of luck, and
given over for dead by all your messmates and relations, why, what it
amounts to is this: nobody knows you, and you hardly knows yourself, and
there you are; and I'll trouble you for another noggin of rum.

MRS. DRAKE. I think you've had enough.

PEW. I don't; so bear a hand. (_Exit MRS. DRAKE; PEW empties the
glass._) Rum, ah, rum, you're a lovely creature; they haven't never done
you justice. (_Proceeds to fill and light pipe; re-enter MRS. DRAKE with
rum._) And now, ma'am, since you're so genteel and amicable-like, what
about my old commander? Is he, in a manner of speaking, on half pay? or
is he living on his fortune, like a gentleman slaver ought?

MRS. DRAKE. Well, sailor, people talk, you know.

PEW. I know, ma'am; I'd have been rolling in my coach, if they'd have
held their tongues.

MRS. DRAKE. And they do say that Captain Gaunt, for so pious a man, is
little better than a miser.

PEW. Don't say it, ma'am; not to old Pew. Ah, how often have I up and
strove with him! "Cap'n, live it down," says I. "Ah, Pew," says he,
"you're a better man than I am," he says; "but damme," he says, "money,"
he says, "is like rum to me." (_Insinuating._) And what about a old
sea-chest, hey? a old sea-chest, strapped with brass bands?

MRS. DRAKE. Why, that'll be the chest in his parlour, where he has it
bolted to the wall, as I've seen with my own eyes; and so might you, if
you had eyes to see with.

PEW. No, ma'am, that ain't good enough; you don't bam old Pew. You never
was in that parlour in your life.

MRS. DRAKE. I never was! Well, I declare!

PEW. Well, then, if you was, where's the chest? Beside the chimbley,
hey? (_Winking._) Beside the table with the 'oly Bible?

MRS. DRAKE. No, sailor, you don't get any information out of me.

PEW. What, ma'am? Not to old Pew? Why, my god-child showed it me
herself, and I told her where she'd find my name--P, E, W, Pew--cut out
on the stern of it; and sure enough she did. Why, ma'am, it was his old
money-box when he was in the Guinea trade; and they do say he keeps the
rhino in it still.

MRS. DRA