Chatterbox, 1905 Part 81

'A coper! What is that?'

'I thought every one in the North Sea knew.'

'This is only my second voyage, and your countrymen do not talk to me as freely as if I were an Englishman. What is a coper?'

'It is a boat that sails about the North Sea to sell drink and tobacco to our fishermen. She flies a flag to show that she has tobacco for sale, and when the men come aboard her, they are tempted to drink, just as we were a few minutes ago. As a rule the poor fellows do drink, and if their money is not all spent by the time that they are intoxicated, they are cheated at cards or robbed. I am very much afraid that we have not bettered ourselves by leaving the _Sparrow-hawk_, for if the skipper of the coper finds that we have money, even though we neither drink nor gamble, he will be anxious to get rid of us.'

A few minutes later a boy brought down to them two mugs of what was supposed to be tea.

'What awful stuff,' Charlie exclaimed after tasting it. 'One sip is quite enough for me.'

'There must be something besides sugar and milk in it,' Ping w.a.n.g declared.

'That is very likely. The skipper hopes that it will get in our heads without our knowing that we have been drinking intoxicants. We will upset the rascal's plans by not drinking any more of the tea.'

In about a quarter of an hour the skipper returned.

'Well, boys, how are you getting on?' he exclaimed. 'Have some more tea?'

'No, thank you,' Charlie replied. 'We haven't drunk this. There's something about the taste that we don't like.'

'It's first-cla.s.s tea. I've never had any complaints about it until now.

I'm very sorry that you don't like it, for you need something warming after your long swim. But look here, if you are tee-totalers, what did you come aboard the _Lily_ for?'

'We made a mistake. We mistook her for another boat.'

The skipper looked at Charlie searchingly. 'Did you think she was a revenue cutter?' he asked.

'Oh, no; we mistook her for a mission ship.'

Now, coper skippers have the same hatred for mission ships that they have for revenue cutters, for the former, by selling tobacco at low prices, keep the North Sea fishermen away from the copers, and so have spoiled their traffic in intoxicant drinks.

'You thought she was a mission ship, did you?' the skipper growled.

'Well, you made a fine mistake.'

'We know that now,' Charlie replied.

'Then why are you sticking here? Jump overboard, and swim back to the _Sparrow-hawk_.'

'I should be drowned,' Ping w.a.n.g declared.

'Well, that wouldn't be much of a loss. There are too many Chinamen already.'

'Look here, skipper,' Charlie interrupted, anxious to prevent a quarrel, 'I have a proposal to make. My friend and I left the _Sparrow-hawk_ because the skipper was a wretched little bully. I suggest that we stay here, as pa.s.sengers, until we meet a boat for Grimsby that will take us aboard.'

'You will have to pay me before you leave the _Lily_.'

'I'll do so, willingly, unless your charges are unreasonable.'

'Will you pay in advance?'

'Certainly not; but I'll settle up with you every evening.'

'Then hand over sixpence for those two cups of tea.'

'Sixpence!' Charlie answered, 'Why, you are charging as if you had put brandy in them. I'll give you threepence.'

Charlie took his belt from his pocket, and, as he undid the pouch attached to it, in which he kept his money, the skipper caught sight of three or four sovereigns.

'Well,' he said, as he pocketed the three pennies which Charlie gave him, 'I ought to let Skipper Drummond know that you are aboard; but, as I owe him a grudge, I won't. I haven't any spare bunks for you, so you must sleep on the cushions here.'

Charlie and Ping w.a.n.g were far from considering that a hardship, for the coper's saloon was a little palace compared with the _Sparrow-hawk's_ foc's'le.

'Well,' the skipper continued, 'I'm going to shut up for the night.'

He drew a sliding-door down over the bottles, and locked it, and left them. As soon as he had gone they lay down and, finding the saloon cushions fairly comfortable, were soon asleep. They awoke about seven o'clock and, going on deck immediately, found that during the night the _Sparrow-hawk_ had steamed away. The coper was, however, in the midst of a busy scene; for the stream-trawlers belonging to the fleet which Charlie and Ping w.a.n.g had seen on the previous day had closed in, and were busy sending their boxes of fish aboard the steam-carrier that was waiting to hurry off with them to Grimsby. The fish was conveyed from the trawlers to the carriers in small, but strongly built, rowing-boats, and some of these, after getting rid of their load, came to the _Lily_.

As the men sprang over the gunwale on to the deck, the skipper greeted each with a hearty 'What cheer, sonny?'

Many of the fishermen were easily prevailed upon to go below and drink.

Some indulged in one gla.s.s, and then hurried off to their ships; but two men remained in the saloon long after the others had departed. When they had been there for half an hour their skipper blew his siren loudly, as a command for them to return at once. Each came on deck quickly; but they were intoxicated to an extent that surprised Charlie, considering the short time they had been on the _Lily_.

'They will never get back to their ship,' Charlie declared to the skipper of the coper.

'That is their look-out, not mine,' the skipper answered, and turned away, evidently not caring what happened to them.

The _Lily_, in common with all the North Sea trawlers, had no ladder by which men quitting the ship could descend into the small boat. The departing man has to hang from the gunwale until the small boat is lifted high on a wave, and then he drops quickly into it. A moment's hesitation may result in his falling into the sea, sometimes with the risk of being crushed between the ship and the small boat. Charlie had good reason, therefore, for thinking that the two poor fellows might meet with an accident, but the men themselves did not consider that there was any danger.

'We shall be all right,' one of them answered noisily, when Charlie advised them to be careful, and the man who spoke certainly dropped into the small boat as easily as if he were sober. The other man, however, hung to the gunwale longer than he should have done, and, consequently, when he did release his hold he had a long way to drop. He landed with both feet on one of the seats, and after struggling for a moment to balance himself, fell backwards into the sea, but, fortunately, not between the boat and the ship. His mate broke into a laugh, but made no attempt to rescue him. Possibly he thought that the man could swim, but it was clear to Charlie that he could not, and that unless he went to his a.s.sistance he would be drowned. So he pulled off his coat and dived into the sea. He came to the surface just beside the man, and, seizing him, pushed him along until they reached the boat, into which the now sober fisherman quickly scrambled. In the meanwhile the other man, seeing Charlie dive to the a.s.sistance of his shipmate, had come to the conclusion that he also ought to do something. He dived in, but in consequence of the muddled state of his head, swam in the wrong direction, and by the time that it dawned on him that he had made a mistake his mate had been rescued by Charlie.

Being a good swimmer, the man regained the boat easily, and Charlie was glad to see that the water had sobered him as effectually as it had his mate.

'You've had a very narrow escape,' Charlie said to the man whom he had rescued. 'Now take my advice, both of you, and don't you ever again set foot on a coper. If you want tobacco, go to a mission ship.'

Charlie got on the seat as he finished speaking, and as the little boat was lifted on a big wave he sprang upwards, grasped the _Lily's_ gunwale and climbed aboard, leaving the men to whom he had denounced copers to wonder why he was on one. Loud blasts from their trawler's siren instantly drove all thoughts of Charlie's action from their minds, and rowing hard they worked their way back to their ship, where they received a lecture from the skipper which they did not forget that voyage.

(_Continued on page 253._)

ALL PRIME MINISTERS.

Many years ago there was a clever and kind doctor at a Paris hospital where the patients were of the poorest cla.s.s. The skill of this doctor somehow reached the ears of the then Premier of France, who, being about to undergo a very serious operation, sent for this doctor to perform it.

'You must not expect, doctor,' said the Prime Minister to the surgeon as he entered the room to arrange for the operation, 'to treat me in the same rough manner as if I were one of your poor wretches at the hospital.'

'Sir,' answered the doctor with dignity, 'every one of those poor wretches, as you are pleased to call them, is a Prime Minister in my eyes.'