ne to have passed over on us, and the _Elsinore's_
another man short."

"Another!" I exclaimed. "Is the Greek going to die?"

"No fear. I'll have him steering in a few days. I refer to the misfits.
If we rolled a dozen of them together they wouldn't make one real man.
I'm not saying it to alarm you, for there's nothing alarming about it;
but we're going to have proper hell this voyage." He broke off to stare
reflectively at his broken knuckles, as if estimating how much drive was
left in them, then sighed and concluded, "Well, I can see I've got my
work cut out for me."

Sympathizing with Mr. Pike is futile; the only effect is to make his mood
blacker. I tried it, and he retaliated with:

"You oughta see the bloke with curvature of the spine in Mr. Mellaire's
watch. He's a proper hobo, too, and a land lubber, and don't weigh
more'n a hundred pounds, and must be fifty years old, and he's got
curvature of the spine, and he's able seaman, if you please, on the
_Elsinore_. And worse than all that, he puts it over on you; he's nasty,
he's mean, he's a viper, a wasp. He ain't afraid of anything because he
knows you dassent hit him for fear of croaking him. Oh, he's a pearl of
purest ray serene, if anybody should slide down a backstay and ask you.
If you fail to identify him any other way, his name is Mulligan Jacobs."

* * * * *

After breakfast, again on deck, in Mr. Mellaire's watch, I discovered
another efficient. He was at the wheel, a small, well-knit, muscular man
of say forty-five, with black hair graying on the temples, a big eagle-
face, swarthy, with keen, intelligent black eyes.

Mr. Mellaire vindicated my judgment by telling me the man was the best
sailor in his watch, a proper seaman. When he referred to the man as the
Maltese Cockney, and I asked why, he replied:

"First, because he is Maltese, Mr. Pathurst; and next, because he talks
Cockney like a native. And depend upon it, he heard Bow Bells before he
lisped his first word."

"And has O'Sullivan bought Andy Fay's sea-boots yet?" I queried.

It was at this moment that Miss West emerged upon the poop. She was as
rosy and vital as ever, and certainly, if she had been sea-sick, she flew
no signals of it. As she came toward me, greeting me, I could not help
remarking again the lithe and springy limb-movement with which she
walked, and her fine, firm skin. Her neck, free in a sailor collar, with
white sweater open at the throat, seemed al