lls wellum, in beautiful German text and
small-hand;--ho! you know, nobody knows wot that feller's been a-doin'
of all his life. If he was hung round with all the gold and silver
medals he _deserves_ to have, he'd go to the bottom--life-preserver
though he is--like the sheet-anchor of a seventy-four, he would."

"What's that about going to the bottom?" said Bax, who came aft at the
moment.

"That's just wot you've got nothin' to do with," replied Bluenose,
resuming his pipe, which, in the ardour of his discourse, he had removed
from his lips, and held out at arm's length before him.

"Well, I have _not_ much to do with going to the bottom," said Bax,
laughing. "But where's Tommy?--oh! here you are. Have you attended to
orders?"

"Blankits, hot, just bin sent in. Coffee, hot, follers in five minits."

"Brayvo," ejaculated Bluenose, with an approving smile. "I wonder who
the old man is?" said Guy. "He neither looks like a landsman nor a
seaman, but a sort of mixture of both."

"So he is," said Bax. "I happen to know him, though he does not know
me. He is a Scripture reader to sailors (Burton by name), and has spent
many years of his life at work on the coast, in the neighbourhood of
Ramsgate. I suppose he was goin' down the coast in the vessel out of
which his daughter tumbled. I didn't know he had a daughter. By the
way, she's not a bad one to begin with, Tommy; a regular beauty,"
continued Bax, with a smile. "You've often wondered whether the first
would be a man, or a woman, or a child. The point is settled now!"

"Yes," replied the boy, with a grave meditative look. "I suppose I
_may_ say she's my _first_, for you know you could not have done it
without me."

There was something ludicrous, as well as sublime, in this little chip
of humanity gravely talking of poor Lucy Burton being "his first," as if
he had just entered on a new fishing-ground, and were beginning to take
account of the creatures he had the good fortune to haul out of the sea!

And in very truth, reader, this was the case. Under the training of a
modest, lion-hearted British sailor, the boy was beginning to display,
in unusual vigour, those daring, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing
qualities which, although mingled with much that is evil, are marked
characteristics of our seamen; qualities which have gone far to raise
our little island to her present high position of commercial prosperity
and political importance, and which, with