and up at her towering masts overhead: “What a splendid ship!”

“Aye, she’s all that, ivery inch of her from truck to kelson,” he answered equally enthusiastically; “an’ so’s our foorst mate, a sailor all over from the sole av his fut to the crown av his hid.”

“And the captain,” I inquired, “what sort of a man is he?”

“Arrah, now you’re axin’ questions,” he rejoined with a sly look from his roguish eyes. “D’ye happen to know what’s inside av an egg, now, whither it’s a chicken, sure, or ownly the yoke an’ white, till ye bhrake the shill?”

“No,” said I laughing. “But, we don’t find chickens generally in our eggs at home.”

“Wait till ye thry one on shipboord,” he retorted. “Still, ye can’t deny now that ye don’t know for sure what’s insoide the shill till ye bhrake it, an’ say for yoursilf—eh?”

“No,” I assented to this reasoning; “but, I don’t see what that’s got to do with the captain.”

“Don’t ye, honey?” replied he with another expressive wink. “Wait till ye can say for yourself, that’s all.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, understanding now that he was shrewd enough not to commit himself to any opinion on the point; so, I did not pursue the inquiry any further.

“Sure, ye’ll excuse me, Misther Gray-ham,” he said presently, after another word or two on irrelevant matters; “but I must stop yarnin’ now, as I expexes the foorst mate aboord ivery minnit, an’ he’ll be groomblin’ like a badger wid a sore tail if those lazy lubbers ain’t hove all the cargy in. We’ve got to warp out o’ dock this arternoon, an’ the tide’ll make about ‘six bells’!”

“When is that?” I asked, to know the meaning of this nautical term, which I guessed referred to the time of day, as my friend the boatswain turned round again towards the stevedores, hurrying them on and making them work with a will.

“Thray o’clock. Sure, I forgot ye didn’t savvy our sailor’s lingo at all, at all,” he explained to me between the interval of his orders to the men, shouted out in the same high key as at first. “An’, be the same token, as it’s now jist toorned two bells, or one o’clock, savin’ your prisince, I’ve got no toime to lose, me bhoy. Jist d’ye go oop that ladder there, an’ wait out av harum’s way till I’ve done me job an’ can come for ye.”

He pointed as he spoke to the steps or stairway leading from the main-deck, where I had been standing alongside of him, to the poop.

I at once obeyed him; and, ascending with alacrity the poop ladder, was able to see from that elevated position the capital way in which he urged on and encouraged the men, until, as if by magic, the heavy boxes and lumbering crates that had but a short time before almost covered the jetty beside the ship, were all hoisted inboard and lowered down into her hold.

Here, below, another gang of stevedores, not less busy than those above, took charge of the stowage of the cargo, slamming the chests and crates about, and so ramming and jamming them between the decks by the aid of jack-screws, that they were soon packed together in one homogeneous mass—so tightly squeezed that not even a cockroach could have crawled in between them, not a single crack or cranny being left vacant.

“Thare now! Sure, an’ that job’s done wid anyhow for this v’yge, plaize the pigs, ma bouchal!” exclaimed the boatswain with a jolly laugh, after seeing the main-hatchway covered and battened down, and a tarpaulin spread over it to make all snug, gazing round with an air of proud satisfaction, as he slowly made his way up the poop ladder again and came up to where I was standing by the rail looking over. “Don’t ye think we’ve made pretty sharp work of it at the last, sorr, eh?”

“I’m sure you have, Mr Rooney,” I replied enthusiastically. For, I could not help admiring the way in which he had got the stevedores to work so steadily and speedily in getting in the cargo and clearing the ship’s deck, so that it was now trim and orderly in place of being littered over with lumber as previously—the active boatswain helping one here, encouraging another there, and making all laugh occasionally with some racy joke, that seemed to lighten their labour greatly and cause them to set to their task with redoubled vigour.—“It’s wonderful how you managed them.”

“Arrah, sure it’s a way I’ve got wid me, honey,” said he with a wink. Still, I could see he was pleased with my remark all the same, from the smile of contentment that overspread his face as he added: “Bless ye though, me darlint, sure an’ it’s ownly blarney arter all!”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“Faix, ya moost go owver to old Oireland to larn, me bhoy,” he answered with a laugh. “Wait till ye kiss the blarney stone, an’ thin ye’ll know!”

“I suppose it’s what father calls the suaviter in modo,” said I, laughing also, he put on such a droll look. “And I think, Mr Rooney, you possess the fortiter in re, too, from the way you can speak sometimes.”

“Bedad, I don’t ondercumstubble,” he replied, taking off his cap and scratching his head reflectively, rather taken aback by my Latin quotation; “though if that haythen lingo manes soft sawder, by the powers I’ve got lashins av it! Howsomedevers, youngster, we naydn’t argify the p’int; but if the foorst mate were ownly aboord, d’ye know what I’d loike to do?”

“What?” I inquired.

“Why, trate them dock loompers to grog all round. They’ve worruked loike blue nayghurs; specially that l’adin’ man av theirs, that chap there, see him, wid the big nose on his face? I’d loike to pipe all hands down in the cabin to splice the main-brace, if ownly the foorst mate were aboord,” he repeated in a regretful tone. Adding, however, the next moment more briskly: “An’, by the blissid piper that played before Moses, there he is!”