He was smoking a handsome pipe with a long stem inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and took a sip from time to time from a cup of black coffee that was standing on the skylight.
"What is your name ?" he asked, nodding in reply to Salve's salute.
"Salve." "Salve," repeated the captain, with an English pronunciation of the name; "and Norwegian ?" "He looks too respectable for the pack he'll have to herd with," he muttered to the boatswain.
"Able seaman ?" "Yes." "You have had three guineas on account ?" he went on, after a couple of puffs to keep his pipe alight, as he looked into his ledger; "a month's wages." "No, sir," said Salve, firmly, "I have had nothing on account,"-- and he proceeded then to relate the circumstances under which the supposed payment had been made.

"I have not been regularly engaged till this moment, if I am so now; but up to this I have been treated like a dog, and worse." The captain took no notice of his last observation, and merely said shortly and sternly-- "The three guineas are owing to him, boatswain Jenkins.

His place will be in the foretop.

A steady hand will be wanted among all that rabble there." "Another time you'll perhaps play on your own account, and not on the sailors'," he observed, turning to the boatswain; but Salve caught the remark.
With this the conference came to an end, the boatswain's expression prophesying that when the opportunity offered Salve should pay for his triumph.

He went about nursing his prominent chin, and twisting his yellow whiskers, and found a victim for the present in a wretched Mulatto, who was scouring for the cook.