"Of intelligence, sir," replied the colonel; "of intelligence and virtue. And of their necessary consequence in this republic—dollars, sir."
Martin was very glad to hear this, feeling well assured that if intelligence and virtue led, as a matter of course, to the acquisition of dollars, he would speedily become a great capitalist. He was about to express the gratification such news afforded him, when he was interrupted by the captain of the ship, who came up at the moment to shake hands with the colonel; and who, seeing a well-dressed stranger on the deck (for Martin had thrown aside his cloak), shook hands with him also. This was an unspeakable relief to Martin, who, in spite of the acknowledged supremacy of Intelligence and Virtue in that happy country would have been deeply mortified to appear before Colonel Diver in the poor character of a steerage passenger.
"Well, cap'en!" said the colonel.
"Well, colonel!" cried the captain. "You're looking most uncommon bright, sir. I can hardly realise its being you, and that's a fact."
"A good passage, cap'en?" inquired the colonel, taking him aside.
"Well now! It was a pretty spanking run, sir," said, or rather sung, the captain, who was a genuine New Englander: "con-siderin the weather."
"Yes?" said the colonel.
"Well! It was, sir," said the captain. "I've just now sent a boy up to your office with the passenger-list, colonel."
"You haven't got another boy to spare, p'raps, cap'en?" said the colonel, in a tone almost amounting to severity.
"I guess there air a dozen if you want 'em, colonel,"said the captain.
"One moderate big 'un could convey a dozen of champagne, perhaps" observed the colonel, musing, "to my office. You said a spanking run, I think r
"Well! so I did," was the reply.
"It's very nigh you know," observed the colonel. "I'm glad it was a spanking run, cap'en. Don't mind about quarts if you're short of 'em. The boy can as well bring four-and-twenty pints, and travel twice as once.—A first-rate spanker, cap'en, was it? Yes?"
"A most e—tarnal spanker," said the skipper.
"I admire at your good fortune, cap'en. You might loan me a cork-screw at the same time, and half-a-dozen glasses if you liked. However bad the elements combine against my country's noble packet-ship the Screw, sir," said the colonel, turning to Martin, and drawing a flourish on the surface of the deck with his cane, "her passage either way, is almost certain to eventuate a spanker!"
The captain, who had the Sewer below at that moment lunching expensively in one cabin, while the amiable Stabber was drinking himself into a state of blind madness in another, took a cordial leave of his friend and captain the colonel, and hurried away to despatch the champagne: well-knowing (as it afterwards appeared) that if he failed to conciliate the editor of the Rowdy Journal, that potentate would denounce him and his ship in large capitals before he was a day older; and would probably assault the memory of his mother also, who had not been dead more than twenty years. The colonel being again left
