"'Oh! who with?' ses the skipper, pretending not to know.

"I 'ad told the skipper that it might cost 'im a quid, so I knew 'ow far I could go; and at last, arter 'Arry 'ad got as far as the door three times, I gave way.

"What is your business?" asked the skipper.

"Can't you sink the ship?" "What do you want to sink for?" demanded the astounded skipper.

Remember: make for the bridge once we've got the skipper.

" "If I could only get aboard I should be all right," muttered the skipper.

" "Oh, I was speakin' of niggers," returned the skipper promptly.

"Not on this craft you can't, sir," replied the skipper firmly.

" "You'll live over it," growled the thirsty skipper.

He went down at last to cold coffee and lukewarm herrings, returning to the deck after a hurried meal to find the skipper narrating some of his choicest experiences to an audience which hung on his lightest word.

Well, there's a certain young woman I'm walking out with I" "Walking out?" gasped the skipper.

'I know every skipper on board every boat in the squadron,' answered his friend.

'So long.' "He went off as spry as a boy, and as soon as he'd gorn the skipper started walking back'ards and for'ards agin, and raving.

"Why didn't ye strip him first, d you?" roared the skipper.

She called the skipper Tom, and sat there as cool as you please holding Uncle Dick's 'and, and patting it.

He calls himself a mate, but if it wasn't for 'aving the skipper for a brother-in-law 'e'd be called something else, very quick.

"Come into the wheel-'ouse with me," invited the skipper pleasantly, which invitation the three middies accepted.

" "Walyess'pose I will," sighed the skipper, as he rolled up his blankets and prepared for two hours' sentry duty.

"I pacified the skipper at last, and arter 'Arry 'ad swore true 'e'd go when 'e'd got the money, the skipper rushed round to try and raise it.

He took up his chronometer to bring it, when a wave like that which got the cook and the boy knocked the skipper over and lost the chronometer.

"Jist ye lie still there, like a darlint, and lave the skipper to me," said Terrence to Fernando.

The little monosyllable No was again put in requisition, with this qualification"that they did not like the Botany Bay skippers."

"I don't want the lot," moaned the skipper.

"Be'aving like a schoolboy," murmured the skipper.

"You must stay here and nurse the skipper, Mr. Mackenzie," said Carson, turning to the mate; "and be good enough not to make that snuffling noise; it's worrying to an invalid.