"
"What do you mean by stowaways?" I asked.
"Stowaways is chaps that hides aboard vessels going out of port, to
get their passage free gratis for nothing."
"Do a good many manage it?" I asked with an anxious mind.
"There ain't a vessel leaves the docks without one and sometimes more
aboard. The captain never looks that way, not by no accident
whatsoever. He don't lift no tarpaulins while the ship's in dock. But
when she gets to sea the captain gets his eyesight back, and he takes
it out of the stowaways for their wittles then. Oh, yes, rather so!"
said the bad boy.
There was a crowd at the gates.
"Hold your bundles down on your right side," said the boy, "and go in
quickly after any respectable-looking cove you see."
Fred had got his own bundle now, and we followed our guide's
directions, and went through the gates after an elderly, well-dressed
man. The boy seemed to try to follow us, squeezing very close up to
me, but the gatekeeper stopped him. When we were on the other side I
saw him bend down and wink backwards at the gatekeeper through his
straddled legs. Then he stood derisively on his head. After which he
went away as a catherine-wheel, and I saw him no more.
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