* * * * *

From a _feuilleton_:--

"... She was startled by a low sibilant whisper, 'I've caught you,
my girl!'"

_Daily Paper._

Try and hiss this for yourself.

* * * * *

THE BARREL OF BEEF.

We were dawdling home from the westward on the flood. Astern of us,
knee-deep in foam, stood the slim column of the Bishop lighthouse, a
dark pencil mark on the cloudless sky. To the south the full Atlantic
piled the black reefs with hills of snow. Ahead the main islands
humped out of the blue sea like a school of basking whales. I had the
tiller and Uncle Billy John Polsue was forward picking up the marks
and carrying on a running commentary, punctuated by expectorations
of dark fluid. Suddenly something away on the port bow attracted his
attention. He rolled to his feet, stared for some seconds and shouted,
"Hold 'er on the corner o' Great Minalte!" a tremor of excitement in
his voice.

I did as I was bid and sheeted home.

Billy John fished the conger gaff from under the blue and silver heap
of mackerel in the well and climbed laboriously on to the little
half-deck. So we were after some sort of flotsam, I could not see
what, because Billy John's expansive back-view obscured the prospect
ahead, but from his tense attitude I judged that it appeared
interesting. He signed to me to come up another couple of points, took
a firm grasp of the gaff and leaned over the bows. Then with a creak
of straining tackle and a hiss of riven water a gig was on us. She
swooped out of the blue, swept by not two fathoms to windward and with
a boat-hook snapped up the treasure trove (it looked suspiciously like
a small keg) right under our very noses as adroitly as a lurcher snaps
a hare. She ran on a cable's length, spun on her heel and slipped away
down the sound, a long lean craft, leaping like a live thing under her
press of canvas. She seemed full of redheaded men of all ages and was
steered by a brindled patriarch who wagged his vermilion beard at us
and cackled loudly. I roared with laughter; I had seldom seen anything
so consummately slick in my life.

Billy John roared too, but from other influences. He bellowed, he
spat, he danced with rage. He cursed the gig's company collectively
and singly, said they were nothing better than common pirates and that
they lured ships to destruction and devoured the crews--raw.

The gig's company were delighted; they jeere