eing a good story-teller, he embellished
them with incidents that gave them a fine finishing touch. He was
asked by some young ladies if he had ever done any courting.

"Oh yes," said he; "I have mixed a lot of that up with other things.
The very last time I was stranded in Chili I got on courting a girl
whose mother kept a bit of an hotel, and I was getting on famously,
when one day the old lady told me I wasn't to come about her house
after her daughter; but I kept on going in a sort of secret way, and
one night I was sitting in what you would call the kitchen, and the
old girl sneaked in with a great big stick. I saw the fury in her eye.
She made a go for me. I couldn't get out, so I bobbed under a
four-legged wooden table, picked it up on my shoulders, and tried to
protect my legs as much as I could. The girl screamed, and rushed to
open the door, and then called out for me to run. I didn't need any
telling. I rushed out, the old witch laying on the table with all her
might until I got out of her reach. And that is the way I am here,
because I shipped at once aboard the _Betty Sharp_, for fear I might
be copped and put in choky by the old fiend."

"Have you heard from your sweetheart since?" asked one of the ladies.

"No," said Jack the boatswain; "nor I don't want to. I'll soon get
another where they knows how to treat genuine sweetheartin'."

Jim Leigh at this point said--

"Now then 'Shortlegs,' we must be going. I've heard that yarn fifty
times."

"Yes, _you_ have; but these here ladies haven't."

"Quite right," said the ladies. "And we would like you to continue
telling some more of your love experiences on the Spanish Main."

Jack, however, said--

"Well, not to-night. Jim wants to get away. I'll come some other
time."

The two sailors then left and made their way back to the docks, and as
they approached the East End a fog which had been hanging over became
so dense that they could not see where they were, and after groping
about for a couple of hours they ran against a house which had a light
in the window. Jim rapped at the door, and a man presented himself. He
was only partially clad. His voice and dialect left no doubt as to the
locality they were in.

"Wot yer doin' of 'ere this time o' night? 'Ave yer come to rob some
o' these yere 'ouses, or wot's yer gime?"

Mr. Leigh was a talkative person, and hastened to explain where they
were going, and that they could not find their way. The man a