faulty,
Any way that we could view it:
And the reason which they gave us
Why they really couldn't save us
Was because the thing had ne'er been done before;
No, such a thing had ne'er been done before."

Mr. Mizzen stopped again, and looked along the deck and up at the masts,
and said, "I can't get it out of my head that the deck is slanting a
little more than usual; the ship doesn't seem to come up well at the
stern. However,--would you like to hear any more of this song?"

Everybody begged him to go on.

The Cabin-boy plucked Freddie's sleeve. "I've done it. You'll s-s-s-see!
Won't that M-m-marmaduke and that M-m-m-mizzen sing another tune when
they f-f-f-find out?" Freddie looked at him in amazement; but the Able
Seaman was commencing the third verse of his song:

"When I was older, and bold as you please,
I shipped on the good ship Firkin of Cheese,
For a v'yage of discovery in the far South Seas,
To gather up a cargo of ambergris
That grows in a cave on the amber trees
Where the medicine men, all fine M.D.'s,
For the sake of the usual medical fees,
Crawl in by night on their hands and knees
In a strictly ethical manner to seize
The amber fruit that is used to grease
The itching palm in Shekel's Disease,--
On a long long v'yage, as busy as bees,
Never stopping for a moment to take our ease,
Never changing our course, except when the breeze
Took to blowing to windward,--we had slipped by degrees
Down the oozy slopes of the Hebrides,
And passed through the locks of the Florida Keys,
Which in getting through was a rather tight squeeze,
But danger is nothing to men like these,
When suddenly the lookout, a Portuguese
Who had better been below a-shelling peas,
Shrieked out, 'They are coming! By twos and threes!
On the starboard bow! We are lost!--"

"We're lost! we're lost! we're lost!" came a terrible cry from the
forward part of the ship, as if in echo of Mr. Mizzen's song. "We're
lost! The dippers! The dippers!"

Everyone jumped up, even Aunt Amanda. The Cabin-boy whispered in
Freddie's ear, in great excitement, "N-n-n-now you'll s-see!"

A man came running down the deck, followed by all the skippers and
mates. As he halted before Mr. Mizzen, he was evidently the Cook, by the
white cook's cap he wore on his head. He took off his cap and wiped his
forehead with his hand. He was in a s