“Didn’t I tell you, Harve, ’twould come araound to us ’fore we’d done? Always those blame boys. But I wouldn’t have missed the show fer a half-share in a halibutter,” Dan whispered.
“ Still , things should ha’ been kep’ sep’rate,” said Disko, and the light of new argument lit in Salters’s eye as he crumbled cut plug into his pipe.
“There’s a power av vartue in keepin’ things sep’rate,” said Long Jack, intent on stilling the storm. “That’s fwhat Steyning of Steyning and Hare’s f’und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the Marilla D. Kuhn , instid o’ Cap. Newton that was took with inflam’try rheumatism an’ couldn’t go. Counahan the Navigator we called him.”
“Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night ’thout a pond o’ rum somewheres in the manifest,” said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. “He used to bum araound the c’mission houses to Boston lookin’ fer the Lord to make him captain of a towboat on his merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on account of his stories.
“Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain’t he?”
“Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was built; but he could niver keep things sep’rate. Steyning tuk him fer the reason the thief tuk the hot stove—bekaze there was nothin’ else that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he whacked up an iverlastin’ hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha’ floated the Marilla , insurance an’ all, in fwhat they stowed aboard her. They lef’ Boston Harbour for the great Grand Bank wid a roarin’ nor’wester behind ’em an’ all hands full to the bung. An’ the hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did they set, an’ divil a rope did they lay hand to, till they’d seen the bottom av a fifteen-gallon