No More Learning

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.