D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 33: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

24 The Petrel Changes Hands. have given the journeyer a good supper, though the chief dish was without name i “The English seamen, judges of eatables,’ returned the host, with vanity, “reckon that Quaqua, there, makes the best ‘chowter’ this side of the line!” “Chowder?” “It’s the noise a pampered child makes over the pap, and so does a man, surfeited with that fish stew, over the viscid, stringy, appetizing mess!” “*Chowter’ is a good name,” responded the feaster, nodding. “The sherry is as sound as if squeezed from the grape, and your Edam cheese is a treat, after the goat’s-milk curd I have been using. Now, as the cap- sheaf to a good meal is a chat, what say you to some of that while your servant ‘s “Please your honor, it is my slave. I rescued her from the Morocco pirates, and glad I did, as she is a cook of the first quality, Chop One, as they say in Macao, thrown away upon eschewers of that succulent ‘bird,’ the pig. Eh, Quaqua, Pedro master?” The blackamoor bowed submissively and grinned. “We talk, then, while your good servant prepares my _ bed—I should say, shakedown,” trying to conform his order with the ostensible resources of the Petrel. “We have a bed meet for a lord,” corrected Pedro. “So much the better, as I have been sleeping on my horse’s back, a bony one! or on straw in the inns of the south. All is one to a sleeper in the van-foss or the ground dried by the bivouac, as you may guess.” Before leaving the fire. the negress replenished it, and it blazed attractively, with ship wood saturated with tar and grease and spitting out variegated flames, the trav- eler turned round to it and stretched out his boots to- ward its curling serpents. ‘How goes trade, Pedro?” “It cometh not in this direction,’ terly. Then, as though the question had driven the spigot into a full-to-bursting cask, Bitts poured out the story of the rise and fall of Salinas, with the diffusiveness of those old-time historians who could not pass a battle Gomichbooks. com b 3 said the man, bit-