eck and caught sight of it before he was quite aware of
the part he was expected to play.

"Why the devil don't you lift the thing off the poor brute," he yelled,
hurrying up towards the case.

"What, can YOU see it, Dick?" said the skipper impressively, laying his
hand on his arm.

"SEE it?" retorted the mate. "D'ye think I'm blind. Listen to the poor
brute. I should--Oh!"

He became conscious of the concentrated significant gaze of the crew.
Five pairs of eyes speaking as one, all saying "idiot" plainly, the
boy's eyes conveying an expression too great to be translated.

Turning, the skipper saw the bye-play, and a light slowly dawned upon
him. But he wanted more, and he wheeled suddenly to the cook for the
required illumination.

The cook said it was a lark. Then he corrected himself and said it
wasn't a lark, then he corrected himself again and became incoherent.
Meantime the skipper eyed him stonily, while the mate released the cat
and good-naturedly helped to straighten its tail.

It took fully five minutes of unwilling explanation before the skipper
could grasp the situation. He did not appear to fairly understand
it until he was shown the chest with the ventilated lid; then his
countenance cleared, and, taking the unhappy Billy by the collar, he
called sternly for a piece of rope.

By this statesmanlike handling of the subject a question of much
delicacy and difficulty was solved, discipline was preserved, and a
practical illustration of the perils of deceit afforded to a youngster
who was at an age best suited to receive such impressions. That he
should exhaust the resources of a youthful but powerful vocabulary upon
the crew in general, and Sam in particular, was only to be expected.
They bore him no malice for it, but, when he showed signs of going
beyond his years, held a hasty consultation, and then stopped his mouth
with sixpence-halfpenny and a broken jack-knife.

THE SKIPPER OF THE "OSPREY"

It was a quarter to six in the morning as the mate of the sailing-barge
Osprey came on deck and looked round for the master, who had been
sleeping ashore and was somewhat overdue. Ten minutes passed before
he appeared on the wharf, and the mate saw with surprise that he was
leaning on the arm of a pretty girl of twenty, as he hobbled painfully
down to the barge.

"Here you are then," said the mate, his face clearing. "I began to think
you weren't coming."

"I'm not," said the skipper; "I've go