"
I answered that this was very thoughtful of him; and so it was, and,
moreover, providential that he had dropped in at the Plume of
Feathers for two-pennyworth of cider to celebrate the day.
We found Captain Coffin seated in a corner of the taproom settle,
puffing at an empty pipe and staring at vacancy. "Drunk as an owl"
described his condition to a nicety; for at a certain stage in his
drinking all the world became mirk midnight to him, and he would
grope his way home through the traffic at high noon in profound,
pathetic belief that darkness and slumber wrapped the streets; on
which occasions the dialogue between him and the barber's parrot
might be counted on to touch high comedy. I knew this, and knew also
that in the next stage he would recover his eyesight, and at the same
time turn dangerously quarrelsome. If Mr. Goodfellow and I could
start him home quietly, he would have reason to thank us to-morrow.
We were bending over him to persuade him--at first, with small
success, for he continued to stare and mutter as our voices coaxed
without penetrating his muddled intelligence--when a party of
'longshoremen staggered into the taproom, escorting one of the
returned prisoners, a thin, sandy-haired, foxy-looking man, with
narrow eyes and a neck remarkable for its attenuation and the number
and depth of its wrinkles.
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