"Drunk!" repeated Dobbs. "You can't have seen much
life if you call me drunk. I'm only just beginning.
Come night, I won't say; I guess I'll be properly full
by then. But now I'm the soberest man in all Big
Muggin."
"It won't do," retorted Wicks. "Not for Joseph, sir.
I can't have you piling up my schooner."
"All right," said Dobbs, "lay and rot where you are, or
take and go in and pile her up for yourself like the
captain of the LESLIE. That's business, I guess;
grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage, and lost twenty
thousand in trade and a brand-new schooner; ripped the
keel right off of her, and she went down in the inside
of four minutes, and lies in twenty fathom, trade and
all."
"What's all this?" cried Wicks. "Trade? What vessel
was this LESLIE, anyhow?"
"Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco," returned
the pilot, "and badly wanted. There's a barque inside
filling up for Hamburg--you see her spars over there;
and there's two more ships due, all the way from
Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in three;
Cohen and Co.
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