I sing out. But
see, our best musician has just seated himself at the instrument."

"I don't talk shop, Nimrod; call it the piano."

Most of those present drew towards the musical corner, where Ebenezer
Smith, having just entered the saloon in search of Robin, had been
prevailed on to sit down and enliven the company. Robin, who had been
delayed by difficulty in finding the note-book, stopped to listen.

Smith had a fair average voice and a vigorous manner.

"You wouldn't object to hear the cook's last?" asked Smith, running his
fingers lightly over the keys.

"Of course not--go on," chorused several voices.

"I had no idea," lisped a simple youth, who was one of a small party of
young gentlemen interested in engineering and science, who had been
accommodated with a passage,--"I had no idea that our cook was a poet as
well as an admirable _chef de cuisine_."

"Oh, it's not _our_ cook he means," explained the sporting electrician;
"Mr Smith _refers_ to a certain sea-cook--or his son, I'm not sure
which--who is _chef des horse-marines_."

"Is there a chorus?" asked one.

"Of course there is," replied Smith; "a sea-song without a chorus is
like a kite without a tail--it is sure to fall flat, but the chorus is
an old and well-known one--it is only the song that is new. Now then,
clear your throats, gentlemen."

Song--The Loss of the Nancy Lee.

I.

'Twas on a Friday morning that I went off,
An' shipped in the Nancy Lee,
But that ship caught a cold and with one tremendous cough
Went slap to the bottom of the sea, the sea, the sea,
Went slap to the bottom of the sea.

Chorus.--Then the raging sea may roar,
An' the stormy winds may blow,
While we jolly sailor boys rattle up aloft,
And the landlubbers lie down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lie down below.

II.

For wery nigh a century I lived with the crabs,
An' danced wi' the Mermaids too,
An' drove about the Ocean in mother o' pearl cabs,
An' dwelt in a cavern so blue, so blue, so blue,
An' dwelt in a cavern so blue.
Chorus.--Then the raging sea, etcetera.

III.

I soon forgot the sorrows o' the world above
In the pleasures o' the life below;
Queer fish they made up to me the want o' human love,
As through the world o' waters I did go, did go, did go;
As through the world o' waters I did go.
Chorus.--Then the raging sea, etcetera.

IV.

One day a horrid grampus caught me all