if you forget to mention
my title of 'Sir,' every time you speak of me, you'll want to get your
hide sewed on tight."

"I beg pardon, sir," said Bill, taking a fresh grip upon the spokes with
his great hands.

"That's right, my son; you're a beggar aboard this here boat. Don't
aspire to anything else."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster.

"And now that you've got to your bearings, as Trunnell would say, I'll
tell you a little story about a man who lost a pet dog called Willie."

I saw that it was high time for me to get forward, and slipped away. I
turned in ready for a call, thinking that perhaps Trunnell was right in
regard to our future prospects in the South Atlantic.

V

When I turned out for the mid-watch that night, Trunnell met me at the
door of the forward cabin. It was pitch dark on deck, and the wind had
died away almost entirely. The canvas had been rolled up, as it had begun
to slat heavily against the masts with the heave from a long, quick swell
that ran rapidly from the southward. The running gear was not new, and
Trunnell was a careful mate, so the ship was down to her upper topsails
on the fore and mizzen and a main t'gallant on mainmast, the courses fore
and after being clewed up and left hanging.

"He's out for trouble to-night," said the little mate. "Blast him if he
ain't touching the boose again."

"Who, the skipper?" I asked.

"He's been below twice during the watch, an' each time he's gettin' worse
an' worse. There he comes now to the edge of the poop."

I looked and saw our old man rolling easily across the deck to the poop
rail. There he stopped and bawled out loudly,--

"Lay aft to the main-brace."

The men on watch hesitated a moment and then came crowding aft and began
to cast off the weather-brace from its belaying-pin.

It was so dark I couldn't see how many men were there, but I noticed Bill
the quartermaster, and as I stood waiting to see what would happen, a
little sailor by the name of Johnson, who had a face like a monkey's and
legs set wide apart, so they never touched clear up to his waist, spoke
out to a long, lean Yankee man who jostled me in the darkness.

"Don't pull a pound on the bleeding line. The old cock's drunk, an' we
ain't here to be hazed around decks like a pack o' damned boys."

The skipper, however, didn't wait to see if his order was carried out,
but came down from the poop and asked for Trunnell and myself. We went
with him into