volunteered some sketch of his annoyances.

"A pretty mess we've had!" said he. "Half the stores were wrong; I'll

wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. Then two newspaper

beasts came down, and tried to raise copy out of me, till I threatened

them with the first thing handy; and then some kind of missionary bug,

wanting to work his passage to Raiatea or somewhere. I told him I would

take him off the wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away

cursing. This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him."

While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant

abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once

quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both curious and

knowing.

"One word, dear boy," he said, turning suddenly to me. And when he had

drawn me on deck, "That man," says he, "will carry sail till your hair

grows white; but never you let on, never breathe a word. I know his

line: he'll die before he'll take advice; and if you get his back up,

he'll run you right under. I don't often jam in my advice, Loudon; and

when I do, it means I'm thoroughly posted."

The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished, under

the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent feeling and

with some hilarity. Mamie, in a plush Gainsborough hat and a gown of

wine-coloured silk, sat, an apparent queen, among her rude surroundings

and companions. The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant

trimness: tarry Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in

that poor place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of

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