d then noted something
else which quite upset his theory.

At that moment the shock-headed boy came up from the hold, with a bundle
of what seemed to be stout oaken laths under his arm.

"What have you got there, Watty?"

"Wud--pieces o' wud."

"What for?"

"I dunno."

"Oh, you are a clever one!" cried Steve, turning away impatiently, for
the sour-looking sailor with the brown mark at the corner of his lip
came up from below, where he had been to fetch a bunch of tar-twine.

"Here, Andrew," said Steve eagerly, "what are they going to make in that
tub?"

"Make, Meester Young?" said the man, turning to gaze thoughtfully at the
cask. "Observations."

"Now, no gammon. Tell me!"

The man wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and spread his face
into a dry kind of grin, just as if something hurt him, and he was
smiling to show people that he did not mind.

"Observations," he said again.

Steve gave him an angry look.

"Don't you make stupid observations."

Andrew McByle of Ballachulish, a well-tanned Scottish whaler, "went
off": that is to say, he did not leave the spot on the deck where he
stood talking to Steve Young, but he went off like a clock or some other
piece of machinery; for he suddenly gave a jerk, and made a peculiar
noise inside somewhere about the throat, accompanied by some singular
contortions of the face.

Steve pressed close up to him, for he had seen the contortions before.

"Look here, Andy," he whispered, "do you want me to kick you?"

"Na, Mr Stevin."

"Then don't you laugh at me when I ask you questions. Every one isn't
so precious clever as you are; and look here, Watty Links, if you dare
to grin at me I'll punch your head. Now then, Andy, what is it?"

"Dinna ca' me Andy, my laddie, and she'll tell ye. My name's Andra."

"Very well then, Andra. What's the tub for?"

"The craw's-nest."

"Bah!" exclaimed Steve; and he walked forward to where the stout
red-faced sailor who had pulled him aboard from the wharf was busy
applying grease to the fore-mast.

"What's that cask for, Hamish?"

"Yon, sir? For the crows," said the man, grinning.

"What! do we shoot crows and salt them down in that tub?"

"Oh no, sir. They shoots themselves up through the bottom."

Steve stood staring at the man for a moment, and then turned away
impatiently.

"How stupid of me," he said. "I ought to have known. Crow's-nest, of
course."

He walked near to the foot of the main-ma