h her husband, who's
a Parliament man, as she was engaged to be married to at the time of
the upset, and my little ladies, who is getting quite big girls too.
And if you hadn't been going away I'd ha' sailed round the castle
tower, and I'd ha' pointed out the cottage to you. Yes, sir, I see
what you are going to ask. I found it lonely there; and I found the
widow of a old mate of mine who seemed to think as how she could make
me comfortable; and comfortable I am, sir--no words could say how
comfortable I am; and do you know, sir, I'm blest if there aint a Joe
up there at this identical time, only he's a very little one, and has
got both arms. So you see, sir, I have got about as little right as
has any chap in this mortial world to the name of Surly Joe."

A FISH-WIFE'S DREAM.

Falmouth is not a fashionable watering-place. Capitalists and
speculative builders have somehow left it alone, and, except for its
great hotel, standing in a position, as far as I know, unrivaled,
there have been comparatively few additions to it in the last quarter
of a century. Were I a yachtsman I should make Falmouth my
headquarters: blow high, blow low, there are shelter and plenty of
sailing room, while in fine weather there is a glorious coast along
which to cruise--something very different from the flat shores from
Southampton to Brighton. It is some six years since that I was lying
in the harbor, having sailed round in a friend's yacht from Cowes.
Upon the day after we had come in my friend went into Truro, and I
landed, strolled up, and sat down on a bench high on the seaward face
of the hill that shelters the inner harbor.

An old coastguardsman came along. I offered him tobacco, and in five
minutes we were in full talk.

"I suppose those are the pilchard boats far out there?"

"Aye, that's the pilchard fleet."

"Do they do well generally?"

"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; it's an uncertain fish the
pilchard, and it's a rough life is fishing on this coast. There aint a
good harbor not this side of the Lizard; and if they're caught in a
gale from the southeast it goes hard with them. With a southwester
they can run back here."

"Were you ever a fisherman yourself?"

"Aye, I began life at it; I went a-fishing as a boy well-nigh fifty
year back, but I got a sickener of it, and tramped to Plymouth and
shipped in a frigate there, and served all my time in queen's ships."

"Did you get sick of fishing because o