riends and go wi' me over the sea?"

"Yes, Bob, I'm quite sure. I'm willin' to follow you to the end o' the
world, or further if that's possible!"

"Then the thing's settled," said Massey, with decision, rising and
thrusting his short pipe into his vest pocket, the lining of which had
already been twice renewed in consequence of the inroads of that
half-extinguished implement.

In pursuance of his "settled" purpose, our coxswain proceeded to the
lifeboat-shed in search of his bowman, Joe Slag, and found him there.

"Joe," said he, in the quiet tone that was habitual to him, "Nell and I
have made up our minds to go to Australia."

"To Austrailly!" exclaimed Slag, leaning his arms on the mop with which
he had been washing down the lifeboat.

"Ay; I can't settle to work nohow since the dear old woman went away;
so, as Nell is agreeable, and there's nothin' to keep me here, I've
decided to up anchor and bear away for the southern seas."

The bowman had seated himself on a cask while his friend was speaking,
and gazed at him with a bewildered air.

"Are 'ee in arnest, Bob?"

"Ay, Joe, in dead earnest."

"An' you say that you've nothin' to keep you here! What's this?" said
Slag, laying his strong hand tenderly on the blue side of the boat.

"Well, I'll be sorry to leave _her_, of course, an all my friends in
Greyton, but friends will get along well enough without me, an' as for
the boat, she'll never want a good coxswain while Joe Slag's alive an'
well."

"You're wrong there, mate," returned the bowman, quickly, while a look
of decision overspread his bluff countenance, "there'll be both a noo
cox'n and a noo bowman wanted for her before long, for as sure as the
first goes away the tother follers."

"Nonsense, Joe; you're jokin' now."

"Yes, I'm jokin' if _you're_ jokin'; otherwise, I'm in dead arnest too--
in as dead arnest as yourself, if not deader. Wasn't you an' me born on
the same day, Bob? Didn't our mothers crow over us cheek by jowl when
we was babbies? Haven't we rollicked together on the shore ever since
we was the height of our daddies' boots, an' gone fishin' in company,
fair weather an' foul, to the present hour, to say nothin' o' the times
we've lent a hand to rescue men an' women an' child'n i' the lifeboat?
No, no, Bob Massey! if you lay yer course for Austrailly, Joseph Slag
follers, as sure as a gun."

Finding that his comrade was in downright earnest, and possessed of a
will as infl