A speaker sits down with a sea captain and listens to him talk about slaves. The details he gives are strange and bitter: they pay for the water they drink, they eat standing up, and they are slaves to industry, in a world where any other kind of work counts as a crime. The captain seems to be describing something wider than ships and chains, a system where everyone is bound to labor and has no real way out. The title, with its joke about talking like a pirate, makes a playful frame, but the content turns grim.
The speaker says very little. He only tells us he drank a great deal with the captain and ended up with an aching head. That plain ending is the emotional center. It suggests the stories were heavy to hear, and drink was the way to cope, or to numb himself. The mood is uneasy and weary, like the morning after a conversation you can't quite shake off.