Never a lad o' the city can match un, by the Lord! Not match
my little Dannie! Clap eyes," says he, "on good ol' little Dannie!
Lord save ye, but of all the young fellers you've knowed he's the
finest figger of a lad--"

"Uncle Nick!" I cried, in pain--in pain to be excused (as shall be
told).

"Hush, lad!" croons he. "Never mind!"

I could not help it.

"An' talkin' about outfits, Tom," says my uncle, "this here damn
little ol' Dannie, bein' a gentleman, haves his _best_--from Lon'on.
Ye can't blame un, Tom; they _all_ doos it."

'Twas all hands t' the pumps for poor Tom Bull. "Dear man!" he gasped,
his confusion quite accomplished.

"An' _paid_ for," says my uncle.

Tom Bull looked up.

"'Tis all," says my uncle, solemnly jerking thumb down towards the
bowels of the earth, "paid for!"

Tom Bull gulped the dregs of his whiskey.

* * * * *

By-and-by, having had his glass--and still with the puzzle of myself
to mystify his poor wits--Tom Bull departed. My uncle and I still kept
to the stall, for there was an inch of spirits in my uncle's glass,
and always, though the night was late and stormy, a large possibility
for new company. 'Twas grown exceeding noisy in a far corner of the
place, where a foreign captain, in from the north (Fogo, I take it),
loaded with fish for Italian ports, was yielding to his liquor; and I
was intent upon this proceeding, wondering whether or not they would
soon take to quarrelling, as often happened in that tap-room, when Tom
Bull softly came again, having gone but a step beyond the threshold of
the place. He stepped, as though aimlessly, to our place, like a man
watched, fearing the hand of the law; and for a time he sat musing,
toying with the glass he had left.

"Skipper Nicholas," says he, presently, "I 'low Dannie Callaway haves
a friend t' buy un all them jools?"

"This here little ol' Dannie," says my uncle, with another little
reassuring tug at my ear, "haves no friend in all the world but me."

'Twas true.

"Not one?"

"Nar a friend in all the world but ol' Nick Top o' Twist Tickle."

"An' _you_ give un them jools?"

"I did."

There was a pause. Tom Bull was distraught, my uncle quivering; and
I was interested in the rain on the panes and in the foreign
captain who was yielding to his liquor like a fool or a half-grown
boy. I conceived a contempt for that shaven, scrawny skipper--I
remember it well. That he should d