" This was discouraging, but not to a limb of
the law. Coristine half removed his wide awake, and said: "I have the
pleasure of addressing the captain of the ship _Susan Thomas_," the name
he had seen painted in gold letters on the stern.
"Not adzackly," replied the shock headed mariner, much mollified; "he's
my mate, and he'll be along as soon as he's made up his bundle. I'm
waitin' for him to sail this yere schooner."
"Where is the _Susan Thomas_ bound for?"
"For Kempenfeldt Bay, leastways Barrie."
"Could you take a couple of passengers, willing to pay properly for
their passage?"
"Dassent; it's agin the law; not but what I'd like to have yer, fer its
lonesome, times. Here comes the old man hisself; try him."
A stout grizzled man of between fifty and sixty came walking along the
wharf, with his bundle over his shoulder, and Coristine tried him. The
Captain was a man of few words, so, when the situation was explained, he
remarked: "Law don't allow freight boats to take money off passengers,
but law don't say how many hands I have to have, nor what I'm to pay 'em
or not to pay 'em.
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