falls into their hands.
He had just mixed a glass of grog, after the day's work was done, and
was eyeing the beverage with that sort of serene anticipation which
the sober certainty of waking bliss is sure to produce, when the
deputation made their appearance, having first sent in the boy, whose
arm was still in a sling from the bite of the monkey.

"Are you in a hurry?" said the doctor, on hearing the novel petition;
for he had nestled himself into the corner of the berth, with one foot
on the bench, the other on the table, and his glass of "half-and-half"
glowing like amber between his eye and the solitary glim of those
profound regions, those diamond mines from which the Hoods and the
Hardys of times past and times present have been drawn up to the very
tip-top of their profession.

"Yes, sir," replied the spokesman of the party. "There is no time to
be lost, for the captain, who is in a great rage, says, if we don't
extricate the monkey's grinders, overboard he goes to a certainty."

"Extricate is not the word, you blockhead; extract, I suppose you
mean. Besides, I fancy it is not his grinders which the captain has
ordered to be removed, but his eye-teeth, or tusks, as they may fairly
be called."

"Well, sir," said the impatient seaman, "just as you please, tushes or
high teeth, if you'll only be kind enough to come and help us out of
this plaguy mess, and save the poor dumb animal's life."

The quick clatter of feet up the ladders gave the signal that the
successful deputation were returning to the anxious party assembled
between the two guns just abaft the gangway-ladder, and nearly abreast
the after-hatchway, and immediate preparations were made for the
operation.

While these preparations were going on, the learned doctor had leisure
to consider the case more attentively; and it occurred to him that it
would be needless cruelty to draw the poor beast's tusks, and
therefore he exchanged that too well-known instrument, the dentist's
key, for a pair of bone-nippers, with which he proposed merely to
break off the points.

"I don't know exactly about that," said the perplexed quarter-master,
when the assistant surgeon explained his views of the matter. "The
captain said to me, 'Draw those wild bear's tushes out of him;' and I
am afraid, if they are only broken, the monkey may still have a chance
for going astern."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" interrupted the judicious doctor. "Can you
suppose the captain wished