"You see, Billie, you never wanted to get spliced, did you?"

"Spliced! What's that?"

"Well, I should have said married."

"O no! I don't think the thought of that ever did occur to me. I'm
sorry, Jenkins, but I really cannot give you advice on that subject."

"H'm! I'm not so sure o' that, Little Bill. You're such a practical
little chap that I do believe if you was put to it you'd be able to--
see, now. If you happened to want to marry a nice little gal, what
would you do?"

"I would ask her," said Little Bill, promptly.

"Jus' so; but that is what I have not got courage to do."

Jenkins laughed at the expression of blazing surprise with which the boy
received this statement.

"Have not got courage!" he repeated; and then, after a pause--"Have all
the stories you have told me, then, been nothing but lies!"

"What stories, Billie?"

"Why, such as that one about the pirates in the Java seas, when ten of
them attacked you and you were obliged to kill four, and all the rest
ran away?"

"No, Billie--that was no lie: it was quite true. But, then, these
blackguards were cowards at bottom, and they saw that I'd got a brace o'
double-barrelled pistols in my belt, and was pretty well up in the
cutlass exercise."

"And that time when you led a storming party against the fort in South
America, and was the only one left o' the party, and fought your way all
alone in through the breach till the troops came up and carried you on
with a rush, and--and--was all about that untrue?"

"Not a bit of it, Billie, though I wouldn't have you think I was
boastin' about it. I only gave you the bare facts, which, like bare
poles, is as much as a ship can stand sometimes."

"An' that time you jumped overboard in Port Royal among the sharks to
save the little girl?"

"That's a fact, if ever there was one," said the seaman quickly, "for
the dear child is alive this good day to swear to it if need be."

"Yet you tell me," continued Little Bill, "that you have not the courage
to ask a nice little girl to marry you?"

"That's exactly how the matter stands, Billie."

It was now Billie's turn to look perplexed.

"Who is this nice little girl?" he asked abruptly, as if the answer to
that question might help to explain the enigma.

"Well--it's Elise Morel; an', mind, not a soul knows about that but you
an' me, Little Bill."

"But--but Elise is _not_ a little girl. She's a big woman!"

Jenkins laughed as he explained