e game?'

"'Wodyermean?' ses he, very short.

"'I mean the fits,' ses I, looking at 'im very steady, 'It's no good
looking hinnercent like that, 'cos I see yer chewing soap with my own
eyes.'

"'Soap,' ses Joe, in a nasty sneering way, 'you wouldn't reckernise a
piece if you saw it.'

"Arter that I could see there was nothing to be got out of 'im, an' I
just kept my eyes open and watched. The skipper didn't worry about his
fits, 'cept that he said he wasn't to let the sarpint see his face when
he was in 'em for fear of scaring it; an' when the mate wanted to leave
him out o' the watch, he ses, 'No, he might as well have fits while at
work as well as anywhere else.'

"We were about twenty-four hours from port, an' the sarpint was still
following us; and at six o'clock in the evening the officers puffected
all their arrangements for ketching the creetur at eight o'clock next
morning. To make quite sure of it an extra watch was kept on deck all
night to chuck it food every half-hour; an' when I turned in at ten
o'clock that night it was so close I could have reached it with a
clothes-prop.

"I think I'd been abed about 'arf-an-hour when I was awoke by the most
infernal row I ever heard. The foghorn was going incessantly, an' there
was a lot o' shouting and running about on deck. It struck us all as
'ow the sarpint was gitting tired o' bread, and was misbehaving himself,
consequently we just shoved our 'eds out o' the fore-scuttle and
listened. All the hullaballoo seemed to be on the bridge, an' as we
didn't see the sarpint there we plucked up courage and went on deck.

"Then we saw what had happened. Joe had 'ad another fit while at the
wheel, and, NOT KNOWING WHAT HE WAS DOING, had clutched the line of the
foghorn, and was holding on to it like grim death, and kicking right and
left. The skipper was in his bedclothes, raving worse than Joe; and just
as we got there Joe came round a bit, and, letting go o' the line, asked
in a faint voice what the foghorn was blowing for. I thought the skipper
'ud have killed him; but the second mate held him back, an', of course,
when things quieted down a bit, an' we went to the side, we found the
sea-sarpint had vanished.

"We stayed there all that night, but it warn't no use. When day broke
there wasn't the slightest trace of it, an' I think the men was as sorry
to lose it as the officers. All 'cept Joe, that is, which shows how
people should never be rude, even to the humble