Well, we had another drink and parted, me not expecting to see any more
of him; but that night as I was down on the dock hailing the vessel for
a dory to go aboard, a man stepped up to me and laid his hand on my
arm. "Captain Corning?" he said, and I said yes.

Well, he was a friend of Mr. Miller--he had seen me talking to Mr.
Miller, and learned that I was about to depart in the early morning,
bound for Placentia Bay; he would like to ask me to do him a small
favor. Could I take one package and land it on my way to Auvergne, where
was one friend of his? A small matter, one five-gallon keg of rum, that
rum which was of such trivial price in Saint Pierre, but on which the
duty was so high in Newfoundland, and his friend was one poor man, one
fisherman, who could not afford to pay the duty.

Now this Auvergne was twenty-five miles this side of any port of entry,
and my first landing in Newfoundland, according to law, had to be at a
port of entry. And so I told this chap that, and how I was liable to a
heavy fine, and so on.

Yes, he discerned much truth in what I said, but consider that poor
fisherman who could have his good rum merely for the landing--no other
cost, none whatever--he, a friend of Mr. Miller, was sending it as a
gift for the holiday Christmas time. And that rum--consider the
piteously cold nights hauling the nets when a drink of good rum was so
soothing, so grateful, so inspiring. And a little favor like that--the
Colonial Government would not be--truly not--and if I did not take the
rum that poor fisherman of Auvergne would have none in its stead. He
could not afford it, the duty was so high--an impossible duty, as no
doubt I knew.