"of all the dirty ill-found tubs," the _Slut_
was the worst we had ever known, our limited experience had made us safe
in declaring, and we had also been voluble about the undue length of
time during which we had been "humbugging about" between Halifax and New
York. But these by-gones we now willingly allowed to be by-gones,
especially as we had had duff-pudding the day before, though it was not
Sunday--(Oh, Crayshaw's! that I should have lived to find duff-pudding a
treat--but it _is_ a pleasant change from salt meat),--and as the
captain had promised some repairs to the ship before we returned to
Halifax.

We were not long in discovering that the promise was a safe one, for he
did not mean to return to Halifax at all. Gradually it leaked out, that
when the salt fish was disposed of we were not going to take in ballast
and go back, as we had thought, but to stow away a "general cargo" of
cheap manufactured articles (chiefly hardware, toys, trumpery pictures,
and looking-glasses) and proceed with them on a trading voyage "down
south."--"West Indies," said the carpenter. "Bermuda for certain," was
another opinion; but Alfonso smiled and said, "Demerara."

"Cap'n berry poor sailor, but berry good trader," he informed us in
confidence. "Sell 'm stinking fish and buy gimcracks cheap; sell
gimcracks dear to Portugee store in Georgetown, take in sugar--berry
good sugar, Demerara sugar--and come back to New York."

Alfonso had made the voyage before on these principles, and was all the
more willing to believe that this was to be the programme, because he
was--at such uncertain intervals as his fate ordained--courting a young
lady of colour in Georgetown, Demerara. I don't think Dennis O'Moore
could help sympathizing with people, and as a result of this
good-natured weakness, he heard a great deal about that young lady of
colour, and her genteel clothes, and how she played the piano, and
belonged to the Baptist congregation.

"I've a cousin myself in Demerara, Alfonso," said Dennis.

"Hope she'm kind to you, Dennis. Hope you can trust her, 'specially if
the members walks home with her after meeting." And Alfonso sighed.

But jokes were far too precious on board the _Slut_ for Dennis to spoil
this one by explaining that his cousin was a middle-aged gentleman in
partnership with the owner of a sugar estate.

As we had sailed on the understanding that the _Water-Lily_ was bound to
New York and back again to Halifax, of cou