KEMPTHORN. 
For swearing, was it?

MERRY. 
               No, it was for charging;
He charged the town too much; and so the town,
To make things square, set him in his own stocks,
And fined him five pounds sterling,—­just enough
To settle his own bill.

KEMPTHORN. 
                  And served him right;
But, Master Merry, is it not eight bells?

MERRY. 
Not quite.

KEMPTHORN. 
   For, do you see?  I’m getting tired
Of being perched aloft here in this cro’ nest
Like the first mate of a whaler, or a Middy
Mast-headed, looking out for land!  Sail ho! 
Here comes a heavy-laden merchant-man
With the lee clews eased off and running free
Before the wind.  A solid man of Boston. 
A comfortable man, with dividends,
And the first salmon, and the first green peas.

A gentleman passes.

He does not even turn his head to look. 
He’s gone without a word.  Here comes another,
A different kind of craft on a taut bow-line,—­
Deacon Giles Firmin the apothecary,
A pious and a ponderous citizen,
Looking as rubicund and round and splendid
As the great bottle in his own shop window!

DEACON FIRMIN passes.

And here’s my host of the Three Mariners,
My creditor and trusty taverner,
My corporal in the Great Artillery! 
He’s not a man to pass me without speaking.

COLE looks away and passes.

Don’t yaw so; keep your luff, old hypocrite! 
Respectable, ah yes, respectable,
You, with your seat in the new Meeting-house,
Your cow-right on the Common!  But who’s this? 
I did not know the Mary Ann was in! 
And yet this is my old friend, Captain Goldsmith,
As sure as I stand in the bilboes here. 
Why, Ralph, my boy!

Enter RALPH GOLDSMITH.

GOLDSMITH. 
                  Why, Simon, is it you? 
Set in the bilboes?

KEMPTHORN. 
                 Chock-a-block, you see,
And without chafing-gear.

GOLDSMITH. 
                   And what’s it for?

KEMPTHORN. 
Ask that starbowline with the boat-hook there,
That handsome man.

MERRY (bowing). 
              For swearing.

KEMPTHORN.

In this town
They put sea-captains in the stocks for swearing,
And Quakers for not swearing.  So look out.

GOLDSMITH. 
I pray you set him free; he meant no harm;
’T is an old habit he picked up afloat.

MERRY. 
Well, as your time is out, you may come down,
The law allows you now to go at large
Like Elder Oliver’s horse upon the Common.

KEMPTHORN. 
Now, hearties, bear a hand!  Let go and haul.

KEMPTHORN is set free, and comes forward, shaking GOLDSMITH’S hand.

KEMPTHORN. 
Give me your hand, Ralph.  Ah, how good it feels! 
The hand of an old friend.