heir entire possessions, money and clothes, could not cover one
half of what they owed, and every compromise had been rejected by the
obdurate landlady. Appeal to their friends was useless, for time did not
admit of an answer being received before the ship sailed. And escape was
hopeless, for the one window that the room possessed was heavily barred,
the door carefully locked, and the key kept in the capacious pocket of
the landlady.

It was the very deuce of a situation--the devil to pay and no pitch hot.
Again and again as the evening wore on they discussed possibilities;
again and again the same conclusion was arrived at. Hope was dead. No
doubt in the end their friends might pay up, but they groaned as the
certainty forced itself on them that their career at sea was as good as
over. If only they had been entitled to any prize-money! But
prize-money there was none, and the few guineas each had had from home
had long been idly squandered.

"We're done, my boys; we're done! Oh, Lord, what swabs we have been!"
cried the senior of the three with a groan, laying his head on the
table.

"Oh, never say die!" said another, a cheery-faced, ruddy lad with a
noticeable Scottish accent. "I've been in as tight a hole before and got
out of it all right. We've a few hours yet to come and go on.
Something's pretty sure to turn up."

As he spoke the key was put in the door, and in came the landlady.

"Well! wot's it goin' to be? Am I to get that there money you owes me,
or am I not? You ain't got much time for shilly-shallyin', I can tell
you, young gentlemen. An' paid I'm agoin' to be, one way or other."

She was a big-boned, florid, dark-eyed woman, well over thirty, somewhat
inclined to be down-at-heel and slatternly, though not yet quite
destitute of some small share of good looks; a woman solid of step and
unattractive to the eye of youth; moreover, as they knew from recent
experience, possessed of a rasping tongue.

"None o' ye got anything to say? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'm
ready to do and let you go. One of you shall marry me! I don't care two
straws which of you it is. But if you three're to get aboard your ship
afore she sails, one of you's got to come with me to the parson this
night an' be spliced. Take it or leave it; them's my terms. For the good
o' my business I must 'ave a 'usband, now my old dad's gone aloft.
Whether he's on the spot or not I don't care not the value of a reefer's
button, so long as I