a rough passage--and, says I to myself, here's lay
up ashore awhile. So I gets a crimp, who takes me to a crib. 'It's all
right here--you'll have snug quarters, Jack,' says he, introducing me to
the chap who kept it. I gives him twenty dollars on stack, and gets up
my chest and hammock, thinking it was all fair and square. Then I meets
an old shipmate, who I took in tow, he being hard ashore for cash. 'Let
us top the meetin' with a glass,' says I. 'Agreed,' says Bill, and I
calls her on, the very best. 'Ten cents a glass,' says the fellow behind
the counter, giving us stuff that burnt as it went. 'Mister,' says I,
'do ye want to poison a sailor?' 'If you no like him,' says he, 'go get
better somewhere else.' I told him to give me back the twenty, and me
dunnage.

"'You don't get him--clear out of mine 'ouse,' says he.

"'Under the peak,' says I, fetching him a but under the lug that beached
him among his beer-barrels. He picked himself up, and began talking
about a magistrate. And knowing what sort of navigation a fellow'd have
in the hands of that sort of land-craft, I began to think about laying
my course for another port. 'Hold on here,' says a big-sided
land-lubber, seizing me by the fore-sheets. 'Cast off there,' says I,
'or I'll put ye on yer beam-ends.'

"'I'm a constable,' says he, pulling out a pair of irons he said must go
on my hands."

"I hope he did not put them on," interrupts the young theologian, for it
is he who accompanies Tom.

"Avast! I'll come to that. He said he'd only charge me five dollars for
going to jail without 'em, so rather than have me calling damaged, I giv
him it. It was only a trifle. 'Now, Jack,' says the fellow, as we went
along, in a friendly sort of way, 'just let us pop in and see the
justice. I think a ten 'll get ye a clearance.' 'No objection to that,'
says I, and in we went, and there sat the justice, face as long and
sharp as a marlinspike, in a dirty old hole, that looked like our
forecastle. 'Bad affair this, Jack,' says he, looking up over his
spectacles. 'You must be locked up for a year and a day, Jack.'

"'You'll give a sailor a hearin', won't ye?' says I. 'As to that,--well,
I don't know, Jack; you musn't break the laws of South Carolina when you
get ashore. You seem like a desirable sailor, and can no doubt get a
ship and good wages--this is a bad affair. However, as I'm not inclined
to be hard, if you are disposed to pay twenty dollars, you can go.' 'Law
and j