`So?' cried Silver. `In my house! Ben, run and help Harry. One of those swabs, was he? Was that you drinking with him, Morgan? Step up here.'

The man whom he called Morgan - an old, grey-haired, mahogany-faced sailor - came forward pretty sheepishly, rolling his quid.

`Now, Morgan,' said Long John, very sternly; `you never clapped your eyes on that Black - Black Dog before, did you, now?'

`Not I, sir,' said Morgan, with a salute.

`You didn't know his name, did you?'

`No, sir.'

`By the powers, Tom Morgan, it's as good for you!' exclaimed the landlord. `If you had been mixed up with the like of that, you would never have put another foot in my house, you may lay to that. And what was he saying to your?'

`I don't rightly know, sir,' answered Morgan.

`Do you call that a head on your shoulders, or a blessed dead-eye?' cried Long John. `Don't rightly know, don't you! Perhaps you don't happen to rightly know who you were speaking to, perhaps? Come, now, what was he jawing - v'yages, cap'ns, ships? Pipe up! What was it?'

`We was a-talkin' of keel-hauling,' answered Morgan `Keel-hauling, was you? and a mighty suitable thing, too and you may lay to that. Get back to your place for a lubber Tom.'

And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat, Silver added to me in a confidential whisper, that was very flattering, as I thought:--

`He's quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on'y stupid. An now,' he ran on again, aloud, `let's see - Black Dog? No, don't know the name, not I. Yet I kind of think I've - yes, I've seen the swab. He used to come here with a blind beggar he used.'

`That he did, you may be sure,' said I. `I knew that blind man, too. His name was Pew.'

`It was!' cried Silver, now quite excited. `Pew! That were his name for certain. Ah, he looked a shark, he did! If we run down this Black Dog, now, there'll be news for Captain Trelawney! Ben's a good runner; few seamen run better than Ben. He should run him down, hand over hand, by the powers! He talked o' keel- hauling, did he? I'll keel-haul him!'

All the time he was jerking out these phrases he was stumping up and down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving such a show of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey judge or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly re-awakened on finding Black Dog at the `Spy-glass,' and I watched the cook narrowly. But he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time the two men had come back out of breath, and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver.

`See here, now, Hawkins,' said he, `here's a blessed hard thing on a man like me, now, aint it? There's Cap'n Trelawney - what's he to think? Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my own house, drinking of my own rum! Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed dead-lights! Now, Hawkins, you do me justice with the cap'n. You're a lad, you are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when you first came in. Now, here it is: What could I do,