uld call any one but by their given and family
names, as the law commands," he said; "I meant merely to inquire, if you
would follow the gentleman you serve to so unseemly and pernicious a place
as a gibbet?"

Fid ruminated some little time, before he saw fit to reply to so sweeping
a query. During this unusual process, he agitated the weed, with which his
mouth was nearly gorged, with great industry; and then, terminating both
processes, by casting a jet of the juice nearly to the sprit-sail-yard, he
said, in a very decided tone,--

"If I wouldn't, may I be d--d! After sailing in company for
four-and-twenty years, I should be no better than a sneak, to part
company, because such a trifle as a gallows hove in sight."

"The pay of such a service should be both generous and punctual, and the
cheer of the most encouraging character," the good-man observed, in a way
that manifested he should not be displeased were he to receive a reply.
Fid was in no disposition to balk his curiosity, but rather deemed himself
bound, since he had once entered on the subject, to leave no part of it in
obscurity.

"As for the pay, d'ye see," he said, "it is seaman's wages. I should
despise myself to take less than falls to the share of the best
foremast-hand in a ship, since it would be all the same as owning that I
got my deserts. But master Harry has a way of his own in rating men's
services; and if his ideas get jamm'd in an affair of this sort, it is no
marling-spike that I handle which can loosen them. I once just named the
propriety of getting me a quarter-master's birth; but devil the bit would
he be doing the thing, seeing, as he says himself, that I have a fashion
of getting a little hazy at times, which would only be putting me in
danger of disgrace; since every body knows that the higher a monkey climbs
in the rigging of a ship, the easier every body on deck can see that he
has a tail. Then, as to cheer, it is sea man's fare; sometimes a cut to
spare for a friend and sometimes a hungry stomach."

"But then there are often divisions of the--a--a--the-prize-money, in this
successful cruiser?" demanded the good-man, averting his face as he spoke,
perhaps from a consciousness that it might betray an unseemly interest in
the answer. "I dare say, you receive amends for all your sufferings, when
the purser gives forth the spoils."

"Hark ye, brother," said Fid, again assuming a look of significance, "can
you tell me where the Admira