og's come aboard, sir. Monkeys is a sooperior
sort o' animal, and the men's been talking it over."

"Talking it over?"

"Yes, sir. They says as a monkey's next door to a man. Not as I thinks
so."

"Then what do you think, Billy?"

"Oh, I think he lives several streets off, sir; but the men thinks
tother, and they says as though it's all werry well for a monkey to play
with a dog and be friends, just as a man might; it's going down hill
like for him to make a habit o' sleeping in a dog-kennel."

"Nonsense! the monkey's happy enough with the dog."

"So was a mate o' mine with the Noo Zeeling savages, after cutting away
from his ship; but our old skipper said he ought to be ashamed of
hisself for going and living that way, and them beginning to tattoo him
in a pattern. He said he was a-degrading of hisself, and fetched him
aboard, saying as if he wanted tattooing some of his messmates should
mark his back with a rope's end. No, sir, we thinks a deal o' that
monkey--our crew does--and we don't want to see him go wrong."

"What stuff! My Bruff is quite as intelligent an animal as your monkey.
Suppose I said he should not associate with the ugly brute?"

"No, no, sir: Jack aren't ugly," said Billy Widgeon in protest. "He
aren't handsome, but no one can't say as he's ugly; while that dog--"

"Oh, he isn't handsome either, but it's absurd to draw the line between
the two animals like that."

"Well, sir, I tell you what the men says; and they thinks a deal o'
Jacko, and looks after his morals wonderful. We do let him chew
tobacco, though it don't agree with him, 'cause he will swaller it; but
as to a drop o' rum, why, Old Greg nearly chucked a man overboard once
for giving him a tot, and Small the boatswain stopped one chap's grog
for a week for teaching Jack to drink. We thinks a deal of that monkey,
sir."

"And I think a deal of my dog, and keep him a deal cleaner than Jack.
But I don't want them to be together. Take Jack away."

"Werry sorry, Mr Mark, sir. Mean no offence," said Billy
apologetically; "but it's the men, sir. They think a deal o' that
monkey."

Billy went forward with a chain and a strap to where a kennel had been
made for Bruff, by turning a flour barrel on its side and wedging it
between two hencoops, and here, greatly to the vexation of the chickens,
who lived in dread of Jack's long hairy arm and clever fingers, which
were always stretching through the bars to pull their feathers