Well, mother was upstairs with father, and I was laying the breakfast table against the captain’s return, when the parlor door opened and a man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand; and, though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I had always my eyes open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.

I asked him what was for his service, and he said he would take rum, but as I was going out of the room to fetch it he sat down upon a table and motioned to me to draw near. I paused where I was, with my napkin in my hand.

“Come here, sonny,” said he. “Come nearer here.”

I took a step nearer.

“Is this here table for my mate Bill?” he asked, with a kind of leer.