Although it was now near midnight, there were still eight or ten seafaring men in the room--several of them members of his own crew aboard the Mohican. Two were playing checkers, the others crowded about a square table where a game of cards was in progress; wavy lines of tobacco smoke floated beneath the dingy ceiling; at one end was a small bar where a man in a woollen shirt was filling some short, thick tumblers from an earthen jug. It was the ordinary sailors' retreat where the men put up before, between, and after their voyages.
One of them at the card-table looked up from his game as Harry entered, and called out:
“Man been lookin' for you--comin' back, he says. My trick! Hearts, wasn't it?” (this to his companions).
“Do I know him?” asked Harry with a slight start, pausing on his way to his bedroom upstairs, where he had left his bag of clothes two hours before. Could he have been recognized and shadowed?
“No--don't think so; he's a street vendor. Got some China silks to sell--carries his pack on his back and looks as if he'd took up a extry 'ole in his belt. Hungry, I wouldn't wonder. Wanted to h'ist 'em fur a glass o' grog an' a night's lodgin', but Cap wouldn't let him--said you'd be back and might help him. Wasn't that it, Cap?”--this to the landlord, who nodded in reply.
“How could _I_ help him?” asked Harry, selecting a tallow dip from a row on a shelf, but in a tone that implied his own doubt in the query, as well as his relief, now that the man was really a stranger.
“Well, this is your port, so I 'ear. Some o' them high-flyers up 'round the park might lend a hand, may be, if you'd tip 'em a wink, or some o' their women folks might take a shine to 'em.”
“Looked hungry, did you say?” Harry asked, lighting the dip at an oil lamp that swung near the bar.
“Yes--holler's a drum--see straight through him; tired too--beat out. You'd think so if you see him. My play--clubs.”
Harry turned to the landlord: “If this man comes in again give him food and lodging,” and he handed him a bank bill. “If he is here in the morning let me see him. I'm going to bed now. Good-night, men!”
Should I lapse into the easy-flowing style of the chroniclers of the period of which I write--(and how often has the scribe wished he could)--this chapter would open with the announcement that on this particularly bleak, wintry afternoon a gentleman in the equestrian costume of the day, and mounted upon a well-groomed, high-spirited white horse, might have been seen galloping rapidly up a country lane leading to an old-fashioned manor house.