lass of beer while we
talk over the business," said Bax.

Coleman shook his head, "Can't quit my post; besides, I don't drink no
beer."

"Brayvo! old feller," cried Bluenose, "give us your flipper. Water,
cold, for ever! say I, as the whale remarked to the porpoise. But let's
go under the lee o' the boat-'ouse an' talk it out, for we shan't nab
Long Orrick this night, if we doesn't go at 'im like a cat at a mouse."

"Just listen to that old codfish," said Tommy Bogey to Peekins, "takin'
credit to his-self for not drinkin', though he smokes like a steam-tug,
an' chews like--like--I'm a Dutchman if I know what, unless it be like
the bo'sun of a seventy-four gun ship."

"Do bo'suns of seventy-four gun ships chew very bad?" inquired Peekins.

"Oh! don't they!" exclaimed Tommy, opening his eyes very wide, and
rounding his mouth so as to express his utter inability to convey any
idea of the terrific powers of bo'suns in that particular line. "But
Bluenose beats 'em all. He'd chew oakum, I do believe, if he didn't get
baccy, and yet he boasts of not drinkin'! Seems to me he's just as bad
as the rest of us."

"D'you think so?" said Peekins, with a doubtful look; "don't you think
the man who does only two nasty things is better off than the one that
does three?"

"Nasty things!" exclaimed Tommy in a tone of amazement. "Don't Bax
drink and smoke, and d'ye think _he'd_ do one or t'other if they was
nasty? Peekins, you small villian as was a blue spider only a week
since, if you ever talks of them things being nasty again, I'll wop
you!"

"You hear that, Bax?" said Guy Foster, who, being only a few paces ahead
of the boys, had overheard the remark, spoken as it was in rather a loud
key.

Bax nodded his head, and smiled, but made no reply.

It is but just to say that Tommy's threat was uttered more than half in
jest. He would as soon have thought of "wopping" a little girl as of
maltreating his meek companion. But Peekins was uncertain how to take
his threat, so, not being desirous of a wopping, he held his tongue and
humbly followed his comrades.

The party walked for some time at the foot of the cliffs under the lee
of a boat-house, engaged in earnest conversation as to the best mode of
proceeding in the meditated enterprise. It was evident to all of them
that the hour for action could not now be far distant; for the gale
increased every moment; the light on the South Foreland was already
sending its warni