the point--
smart of him, wasn't it?"

I could not help laughing at this story, the other hands joining in the
merriment; all of us, though, wondering how Pat Doolan would take it.

The Irishman, however, did not consider there was anything personal in
it. Other people's pulls at the long-bow always seem much more apparent
than one's own!

"Ov coorse that chap was takin' a rise out of the ould lady," he said
parenthetically; "but what I tould you ov the mule was thrue enough."

"What! do you mean to say that you were sailing away from the carcase
for three weeks and came across it again?" I inquired, with a smile.

"Not a doubt ov it," replied the Irishman, stoutly, "and going good
siven knots an hour by the log, too, at that! I rec'lect that v'yage o'
mine in that schooner well, too, by the same token! It was there I
found that Manilla guernsey ov mine so handy ag'in' the could."

"A Manilla guernsey?" said Jorrocks, in much amazement. "I know what
Manilla cables are, and I've heard tell o' Manilla cigars, though I've
never smoked 'em; but a Manilla guernsey--why, who ever came across sich
an outlandish thing?"

"Be jabers, I have, boatswain," cried Pat Doolan. "Sure, an' I made it
mysilf; so, if you'll listen, I'll till ye all about it."

"Hooray, here's another bender!" sang out the chaps standing by; but,
seeing that the cook appeared as if he would turn rusty if they showed
any further incredulity at his statements, they composed their
faces--"looking nine ways for Sunday," as the phrase goes; or, like the
Carthaginians when the pious Aeneas was spinning that wonderful yarn of
his which we read about in Virgil, in the presence of Queen Dido and her
court, _conticuere omnes et ora tenebant_!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

CAUGHT IN A PAMPERO.

"Sure an' you must bear in mind, messmates," commenced Pat, coming
outside his galley and leaning against the side in free-and-easy
fashion, "when I wint aboord that vessel in Noo Yark, I was a poor
gossoon, badly off for clothes, having no more slops than I could carry
handy in a hankercher."

"Not like your splendiferous kit now," observed Sails, the sail-maker,
with a nudge in Jorrocks' ribs to point the joke--the cook's gear in the
way of raiment being none of the best.

"No, not a ha'porth ov it," proceeded the Irishman, taking no notice of
the sarcastic allusion to his wardrobe. "To till the truth, I'd only
jist what I stood up in, for I'd hard times ov i