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"`I never join a craft unless I know what sort of a captain and messmates I'm a-going to have, said Toney. "`There are times when a man mustn't be over particular, said his visitor. `You're a fool if you don't say yes, so just come on deck and sign articles. You'll learn all about this craft afterwards. "`No, no, said Toney; `I never buy a pig in a poke. Tell me what?
The other man shared the same fate. Toney expected to die, but the next day he was picked up by an English sloop-of-war; and as he took care not to give a very clear account of the craft he had been aboard of, he was allowed to enter as one of her crew. Here he met Roger Riddle, to whom he gave the account of his adventure."
There were fresh-faced girls, and sweet, freckled-faced girls, and jolly girls, and shy girls all sorts of girls except sulky, "toney" girls and lanky chaps, most of them sawney, and weird, whiskered agriculturists, who watched the dancers with old, old time-worn smiles, or stood, or sat on their heels yarning, with their pipes, outside, where two boilers were slung over a log-fire to boil water for tea; and there were leathery women, with complexions like dried apples, who gossiped for the first time in months perhaps and watched the young people, and thought at times, no doubt, of other days of other days when they were girls.
Then the Hen let a-go of Santa Fé's neck and said comical speaking kind of precise and toney, like as if she was an officer's wife sure enough: "You had better return to your study, dear Uncle Charley, and finish writing that sermon you said we'd interrupted you in that was about caring for the sheep as well as the lambs!"
So you've got here! I was looking for you on the coach, and I thought you hadn't come." Hill said he begun to shake all over with laughing; being sure for all Charley in his black clothes and white tie looked so toney it would be a dead give away for her. But he said she only give a little jump when Santa Fé sung out to her, and didn't turn a hair.
She had taken no end of prizes, and had made every one on board her as rich as Jews, only somehow or other they didn't keep their money as well as Jews did, `and that's the reason why my pockets ain't lined as well as they were a few weeks ago, observed Joe. Toney, who was a steady sort of a man, didn't quite like the account Joe gave of the `Viper's' cruise Joe was talking about.
"Toney, d'ye see, was once on a time knocking about Plymouth, after he had been paid off from the ship he last sailed in, when who should he meet but Joe Gubbins, who had served with him for many years gone by. Joe had always been a wild slip of a fellow when he was a youngster. "Said Joe to Toney, `What are you doing in these 'ere parts, old Ship?
I know that my grandfather was a small man, and a passionate man, and Toney sometimes tells me I am like him.
He retains pretty well his faculties, and, like most old people, is garrulous and loves a listener. He will be delighted with our visit." "Miss Alice, do you frequently visit Uncle Toney?" "Very nearly every day. I have in my basket, here, something for the old man.
It was on one of those peculiarly lonely afternoons which come in the last days of October when the stillness persuades to rest and meditation in the woods that, seated on a prostrate tree near the pathway which led down the little creek to the residence of Uncle Toney, the young guest of the judge was surprised by Alice with a small negro girl on their way to visit Uncle Toney.
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