tudy of
yonder noble and gallant ship?"

"Did it then surprise you that a seaman out of employment should examine a
vessel that he finds to his mind, perhaps with an intention to ask for
service?"

"Her commander must be a dull fellow, if he refuse it to so proper a lad!
But you seem to be too well instructed for any of the meaner births."

"Births!" repeated the other, again fastening his eyes, with a singular
expression, on the stranger in green.

"Births! It is your nautical word for 'situation, or; station;' is it not?
We know but little of the marine vocabulary, we barristers; but I think I
may venture on that as the true Doric. Am I justified by your authority?"

"The word is certainly not yet obsolete; and, by a figure, it is as
certainly correct in the sense you used it."

"Obsolete!" repeated the stranger in green, returning the meaning look he
had just received: "Is that the name of any part of a ship? Perhaps, by
_figure_, you mean figure-head; and, by _obsolete_, the long-boat!"

The young seaman laughed; and, as if this sally had broken through the
barrier of his reserve, his manner lost much of its cold restraint during
the remainder of their conference.

"It is just as plain," he said, "that you have been at sea, as it is that
I have been at school. Since we have both been so fortunate, we may afford
to be generous and cease speaking in parables. For instance, what think
you has been the object and use of this ruin, when it was in good
condition?"

"In order to judge of that," returned the stranger in green, "it may be
necessary to examine it more closely. Let us ascend."

As he spoke, the barrister mounted, by a crazy ladder, to the floor which
lay just above the crown of the arches, through which he passed by an open
trapdoor His companion hesitated to follow; but, observing that the other
expected him at the summit of the ladder, and that he very kindly pointed
out a defective round, he sprang forward, and went up the ascent with the
agility and steadiness peculiar to his calling.

"Here we are!" exclaimed the stranger in green, looking about at the naked
walls, which were formed of such small and irregular stones as to give the
building the appearance of dangerous frailty, "with good oaken plank for
our deck, as you would say, and the sky for our roof, as we call the upper
part of a house at the universities. Now let us speak of things on the
lower world. A--a--; I forget what you said was