y," who had been birthed in the
jungle roof of the island of Santo, in the New Hebrides, who had been
netted by a two-legged black man-eater and sold for six sticks of tobacco
and a shingle hatchet to a Scotch trader dying of malaria, and in turn
had been traded from hand to hand, for four shillings to a blackbirder,
for a turtle-shell comb made by an English coal-passer after an old
Spanish design, for the appraised value of six shillings and sixpence in
a poker game in the firemen's forecastle, for a second-hand accordion
worth at least twenty shillings, and on for eighteen shillings cash to a
little old withered Chinaman--so did pass Cocky, as mortal or as immortal
as any brave sparkle of life on the planet, from the possession of one,
Ah Moy, a sea-cock who, forty years before, had slain his young wife in
Macao for cause and fled away to sea, to Kwaque, a leprous Black Papuan
who was slave to one, Dag Daughtry, himself a servant of other men to
whom he humbly admitted "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," and "Thank you, sir."

One other comrade Michael found, although Cocky was no party to the
friendship. This was Scraps, the awkward young Newfoundland puppy, who
was the property of no one, unless of the schooner _Mary Turner_ herself,
for no man, fore or aft, claimed ownership, while every man disclaimed
having brought him on board. So he was called Scraps, and, since he was
nobody's dog, was everybody's dog--so much so, that Mr. Jackson promised
to knock Ah Moy's block off if he did not feed the puppy well, while
Sigurd Halvorsen, in the forecastle, did his best to knock off Henrik
Gjertsen's block when the latter was guilty of kicking Scraps out of his
way. Yea, even more. When Simon Nishikanta, huge and gross as in the
flesh he was and for ever painting delicate, insipid, feministic water-
colours, when he threw his deck-chair at Scraps for clumsily knocking
over his easel, he found the ham-like hand of Grimshaw so instant and
heavy on his shoulder as to whirl him half about, almost fling him to the
deck, and leave him lame-muscled and black-and-blued for days.

Michael, full grown, mature, was so merry-hearted an individual that he
found all delight in interminable romps with Scraps. So strong was the
play-instinct in him, as well as was his constitution strong, that he
continually outplayed Scraps to abject weariness, so that he could only
lie on the deck and pant and laugh through air-draughty lips and dab
futilel