rmint drops--

which would imply that Little Buttercup might supply on demand
anything from a wrought-iron gate to a paper of toothpicks.

"Well, Little Buttercup, you're the rosiest and roundest beauty in all
the navy, and we're always glad to see you."

"The rosiest and roundest, eh? Did it ever occur to you that beneath
my gay exterior a fearful tragedy may be brewing?" she asks in her
most mysterious tones.

"We never thought of that," the Boatswain reflects.

"I have thought of it often," a growling voice interrupts, and
everybody looks up to see Dick Deadeye. Dick is a darling, if
appearances count. He was named Deadeye because he _had_ a dead-eye,
and he is about as sinister and ominous a creature as ever made a
comic opera shiver.

"You _look_ as if you had often thought of it," somebody retorts, as
all move away from him in a manner which shows Dick to be no
favourite.

"You don't care much about me, I should say?" Dick offers, looking
about at his mates.

"Well, now, honest, Dick, ye can't just expect to be loved, with such
a name as Deadeye."

Little Buttercup, who has been offering her wares to the other
sailors, now observes a very good-looking chap coming on deck.

"Who is that youth, whose faltering feet with difficulty bear him on
his course?" Buttercup asks--which is quite ridiculous, if you only
dissect her language! Those "faltering feet which with difficulty bear
him on his course" belong to Ralph Rackstraw, who is about the most
dashing sailor in the fleet. The moment Buttercup hears his name, she
gasps to music:

"Remorse, remorse," which is very, very funny indeed, since there
appears to be nothing at all remarkable or remorseful about Ralph
Rackstraw. But Ralph immediately begins to sing about a nightingale
and a moon's bright ray and several other things most inappropriate to
the occasion, and winds up with "He sang, Ah, well-a-day," in the most
pathetic manner. The other sailors repeat after him, "Ah, well-a-day,"
also in a very pathetic manner, and Ralph thanks them in the politest,
most heartbroken manner, by saying:

I know the value of a kindly chorus,
But choruses yield little consolation
When we have pain and sorrow, too, before us!
I love, and love, alas! above my station.

Which lets the cat out of the bag, at last! "He loves above his
station!" Buttercup sighs, and pretty much the entire navy sighs.
Those sailors are very sentimental chaps, ve