but no branch of the army gave nobler opportunities for
distinguished service in time of war. At this point he spoke with such
obvious relish, that I saw Dennis was ready to take the Queen's Shilling
on the spot. Alister's eyes gave a flash or two, but on the whole he
"kept a calm sough," and put the other side of the question.

He said a good deal, but the matter really lay in small compass. The
profession of arms is not highly paid. It was true that the pay was poor
enough as a seaman, and the life far harder, but then he was only bound
for each voyage. At other times he was his own master, and having
"gained an insight into" trading from his late captain, he saw
indefinite possibilities before him. Alister seemed to have great faith
in openings, opportunities, chances, &c., and he said frankly that he
looked upon his acquired seamanship simply as a means of paying his
passage to any part of the habitable globe where fortunes could be made.

"Then why not stick together?" cried Dennis. "Make your way up to
Halifax with us, Alister dear. Maybe you'll find your cousin at home
this time, and if not, at the worst, there's the captain of our old ship
promised ye employment. Who knows but we'll all go home in her together?
Ah, let's keep the Shamrock whole if we can."

"But you see, Dennis," said the lieutenant, "Alister would regard a
voyage to England as a step backward, as far as his objects are
concerned."

Dennis always maintained that you could never contrive to agree with
Alister so closely that he would not find room to differ from you.

So he nudged me again (and I kicked him once more), when Alister began
to explain that he wouldn't just say _that_, for that during the two or
three days when he was idle at Liverpool he had been into a free library
to look at the papers, and had had a few words of converse with a decent
kind of an old body, who was a care-taker in a museum where they bought
birds and beasts and the like from seafaring men that got them in
foreign parts. So that it had occurred to him that if he could pick up a
few natural curiosities in the tropics, he might do worse, supposing his
cousin be still absent from Halifax, than keep himself from idleness, by
taking service in our old ship, with the chance of doing a little
trading at the Liverpool Museum.

"I wish I hadn't broken that gorgeous lump of coral Alfonso gave me,"
said Dennis. "But it's as brittle as egg-shell, though I rather fancy
the