hat to the marines, for a sailor won't believe
you," he replied, briskly. "Why, laddie, anybody can help anybody, the
same as the mouse nibbled the lion out of the hunter's net; and, as for
Mr Nobody, I don't know the man! Look here, I can't bear to see a ship
in distress, or a comrade in the doldrums; so I tell you what, young
cockbird, raise your crest and don't look so peaky, for I'm going to
help you if it's in my power, as most likely it is--that is, saving as
how it ain't a loss by death, which takes us all, and which the good
Lord above can only soothe, bringing comfort to you; and even then, why,
a friendly word, and a grip o' some un's hand, sometimes softens down
the roughest plank we've got to tread.

"I tell you, my hearty," he resumed again, after a brief pause, during
which my sobs ceased, "I ain't a going to let you adrift, now I've borne
down alongside and boarded you, my hearty--that's not Sam Pengelly's
way; so you'd better make a clean breast of your troubles and we'll see
what can be done for 'em. To begin with, for there's no use argufying
on an empty stomach, are you hungry, eh?"

"No," I said with a smile, his cheery address and quaint language
banishing my melancholy feelings in a moment, just as a ray of sunshine
or two, penetrating the surface mist, that hangs over the sea and land
of a summer morning before the orb of day, causes it to melt away and
disappear as if by magic, waking up the scene to life; "I had breakfast
in the town about an hour ago."

"Are you hard up?" was his next query.

"No," I answered again, this time bursting into a laugh at the puzzled
expression on his face; "I've got a shilling and a sixpence--there!" and
I drew the coins from my pocket, showing them to him.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" murmured the old fellow to himself, taking off the
straight-peaked blue cloth cap he wore, and scratching his head
reflectively--as if in a quandary, and cogitating how best to get out of
it. "Neither hard up or hungry! I call this a stiff reckoning to work
out. I'd better try the young shaver on another tack. Got any
friends?" he added, in a louder key--addressing himself, now, personally
to me, not supposing that I had heard his previous soliloquy, for he had
merely uttered his thoughts aloud.

This question touched me on the sore point, and I looked grave at once.

"No," I replied, "I've got none left now, since Tom's gone."

"And who's Tom?" he asked, confidentially, to