Chapter 97

PEW, MRS. DRAKE, KIT

PEW (_coming out and waving his pipe_). Commander, shake! Hooray for old England! If there’s anything in the world that goes to old Pew’s ’art, it’s argyment. Commander, you handled him like a babby, kept the weather gauge, and hulled him every shot. Commander, give it a name, and let that name be rum!

KIT. Ay, rum’s the sailor’s fancy. Mrs. Drake, a bottle and clean glasses.

MRS. DRAKE. Kit French, I wouldn’t. Think better of it, there’s a dear! And that sweet girl just gone!

PEW. Ma’am, I’m not a ’ard man; I’m not the man to up and force a act of parleyment upon a helpless female. But you see here: Pew’s friends is sacred. Here’s my friend here, a perfeck seaman, and a man with a ’ed upon his shoulders, and a man that, damme, I admire. He give you a order, ma’am:—march!

MRS. DRAKE. Kit, don’t you listen to that blind man; he’s the devil wrote upon his face.

PEW. Don’t you insinuate against my friend. _He_ ain’t a child, I hope? _he_ knows his business? Don’t you get trying to go a lowering of my friend in his own esteem.

MRS. DRAKE. Well, I’ll bring it, Kit; but it’s against the grain. (_Exit_.)

KIT. I say, old boy, come to think of it, why should we? It’s been glasses round with me all day. I’ve got my cargo.

PEW. You? and you just argy’d the ’ed off of Admiral Guinea? O stash that! _I_ stand treat, if it comes to that!

KIT. What! Do I meet with a blind seaman and not stand him? That’s not the man I am!

MRS. DRAKE (_re-entering with bottle and glasses_). There!

PEW. Easy does it, ma’am.

KIT. Mrs. Drake, you had better trot.

MRS. DRAKE. Yes, I’ll trot; and I trot with a sick heart, Kit French, to leave you drinking your wits away with that low blind man. For a low man you are—a low blind man—and your clothes they would disgrace a scarecrow. I’ll go to my bed, Kit; and O, dear boy, go soon to yours—the old room, you know; it’s ready for you—and go soon and sleep it off; for you know, dear, they, one and all, regret it in the morning; thirty years I’ve kept this house, and one and all they did regret it, dear.

PEW. Come now, you walk!

MRS. DRAKE. O, it’s not for your bidding. You a seaman? The ship for you to sail in is the hangman’s cart.—Good-night, Kit dear, and better company!