"Did he struggle much?"

"Faith and he did a wee bit, Duck, but so did I too, ye see," said
Paddy, entering into the joke.

"Let's have a look at him," said Duck, taking me and stripping the coat
off my back. "Give us the key."

"The kay!" said Paddy, whose notions of a watch's interior were
delightfully vague; "sure there's no kay. Here, Edward I will ye lend
Mister Downie a kay!"

The youth addressed as Edward fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the
key of his locker, which he handed to my master.

"That's the boy! Here's a kay, Duck darlint, since ye want one."

Duck was rude enough to laugh immoderately at this--so much so, that my
master, who was unconscious of a joke, grew quite angry.

"Ef that's all ye can do--gape like an ould money-box--I can do that as
well myself; so hand up the watch!"

Duck Downie laughed again at this, and then said,--

"I want the key of the watch, puddin'-head, not this thing!"

"Arrah, it's got no kay, I tell ye. What ud _it_ want a kay for?"

Duck laughed again at this.

"Paddy," said he, "next time you borrow a gentleman's watch be sure you
ask 'im for the key, do you hear? You want the key to wind the thing
up--that's why he don't go."

Paddy, who had sense enough to see that Mr Downie knew more about a
watch than he did, held his peace, and took no trouble to refute the
imputation on the way in which he had come by me.

Duck Downie having, with some difficulty, borrowed a watch-key, wound me
up, greatly to my delight and that of my master. It was delicious to
feel the blood tingling through my veins once more, and to have my heart
beat again with renewed animation. My master's glee was only equalled
by his astonishment. He looked at first as if he suspected Duck Downie
of being in league with supernatural powers; but when that eminent
mechanic took the trouble to explain to him the value of the operation
he had just performed on me, Paddy without a word rushed out, at the
risk of all sorts of penalties, into the town, and knew no peace till he
had possessed himself of a "kay," which henceforth became the
inseparable companion of me and the watered ribbon.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

HOW I MADE A LONG JOURNEY, AND REACHED THE HAPPIEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE.

One morning, in the autumn of the same year, a small cluster of men
standing on the deck of the troopship "Lizard," as she tumbled lazily
forward over the waves, descried in the far horizon before th