“Captain, sure ye needn’t trouble yerself anyhow; we’ll take yer honor that he don’t run away, and if he does ye’ll stand the odds at the sheriff’s.  Sure a case would niver pass Mr. Grimshaw s observation; but to plase ye, and considering’ the wreck, meself and Dusenberry ’ll put him up without,” said Dunn.

During the conversation, Manuel plead hard to be heard before the Consul, having a mistaken idea that the Consul could protect him from all danger; and that if he could get a hearing before him, he was sure to be released.  The Captain shook his hand and told him to be contented until the Consul’s office opened, when he would come to the jail and see him.  Manuel then turned to the crew, and shaking the hands of each, took his little bundle in one hand, and holding little Tommy by the other, (who accompanied him to the head of the wharf,) was soon out of sight.

But will the reader believe what was the practice of these petty officers?  We can assure them that such instances as the one we shall relate are not only practised in Charleston to an unlimited extent, but the fact is well known to both magistrates and the public; the former treat it as moonshine, and the latter rail against it, but never take proper action.

Scarcely had little Tommy left them at the head of the wharf, before they intimated that it would be well to consider a morning dram.  To this end, they walked into a “Dutch corner shop,” and passing into the back room, gave sundry insinuations that could not be misunderstood.  “Well! come, who pays the shot?” said Dunn, stepping up to the counter, and crooking his finger upon his nose at a dumpling-faced Dutchman, who stood behind the counter, waiting for his man to name it.  The Dutchman was very short and very thick, leaving the impression that he had been very much depressed in his own country when young.  He rubbed his hands and flirted his fingers in motion of anxiety, “Every ting vat de shentleman vant him—­dare notin like to my zin and brondty vat him got mit ze zity,” said Dutchy.

“Gentlemen, I should be glad to have you drink with me, if it be proper to ask,” said Manuel

“Oh! yes—­certainly, yes!—­just what we come for, something to cut away the cobwebs—­’twouldn’t do to go out in the morning fog without a lining,” said Dunn.

“Name it! name it! shentlemen,” exclaimed the Dutchman, as he rapped his fingers upon the counter, and seemed impatient to draw forth his filthy stuff.  They named their drinks, each with a different name.  Manuel not being a Charleston graduate in the profession of mixing drinks and attaching slang names to them, Mr. Dusenberry undertook to instruct him in a choice.  The Dutchman was an adept at mixing, and the “morning pulls” were soon set out to the extreme satisfaction of Dunn and Dusenberry.  “All right! tip her down, my old fellow; none o’ yer screwed faces over such liquor as that.  We drink on the legitimate, in Charleston, and can put it down until we see stars,” said Dusenberry, addressing himself to Manuel, who was making a wry face, while straining to swallow the cut-throat stuff.