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"Not a drop!" says I

"Good! The do!" quoth I

"Ha--d'ye like it?"

"No, I don't!"

"And wherefore no?"

"There seereat laugh and hugging his case-bottle "Death says you--aye, aye, says I and so there is, death in every line on't 'Tis song as was made for dead men, of dead men, by a dead man, and there's for ye now!" Here he lifted the bottle, drank, and thereafter susto "Made by a dead man," he repeated, "for deadless and less!"

"You've a cursed queasy stomach I think!" he hiccupped

"And an eht on by--by betterat lance was steady, I perceived the drink was affecting hi

"As who?" I questioned

"First, there's Abnegation Mings as you shall hear tell of on the Main from Panama to St Catherine's, aye, by the horns of Nick there be none of all the coastwise Brotherhood quicker or readier when there's aught i' the wind than Abnegation, and you can lay to that, my delicate cove!"

"And who's he?"

"Myself!" Here he took another draught and nodded at me in drunken solemnity "And look'ee, ation Mings you'll know as Death's none so bad a thing, so long as it leaves you alone And I for one say 'tis a good song and there's for ye!"