t in the States, an' was
glad enough to ship in the schooner to git out ov the way ov thim rowdy
Yankees, bad cess to 'em! They trate dacint Irishmen no betther nor if
they were dirthy black nayghurs, anyhow! How so be it, as soon as I got
afloat ag'in, I made up my mind to git some traps togither as soon as I
could."

"Let you alone for that!" interposed Sails again, maliciously.

"Arrah, be aisy now, old bradawl and palm-string, or I'll bring ye up
with a round turn!" exclaimed Pat, getting nettled at the remark.

"Why can't you let him be?" cried the rest, thereupon. "Heave ahead,
cooky;" and, so encouraged, the Irishman once more made a fresh start,
declaring, however, that if he were once more interrupted they'd "never
hear nothing" of what he was going to tell them, "at all, at all!"

Peace being then restored, he resumed the burden of his tale.

"As soon as the ould schooner was riddy to start with all thim mules
aboard, we got a tugboat to take us in tow down the harbour out to the
Narrows, as they calls the entrance to Noo Yark Bay; and whin the tug's
hawser was fetched over our bows to be fastened to the bollards I sees
that the rope's a bran-new Manilla one.

"`Aha,' thinks I, `that's a foine pace of rope anyhow! I'll have a bit
ov you, me lad, to stow away with my duds; mayhap ye'll come in handy
by-and-bye!' and so saying to meeself, I sings out to the chap on the
tugboat a-paying out the hawser, to give me some more slack, and he
heaves over a fathom or two more, which allowed me to cut off a good
length, lavin' plenty yit to belay around the bollards; an' whin no one
was lookin' I takes the pace ov cable below and kicks it away in the
forepeak, so as I could know where to foind it forenenst the time I
wanted for to use it.

"Well, we sailed away from Sandy Hook down to the Line, an' sailed and
sailed, losin' most of our mules, and making no headway, as I've tould
you, until at last we got into the south-east Trades, same as this ship
is now, and fetched down the coast to Cape Horn.

"Presently, it begins to get so could, that for want of clothing I was
nearly blue-mouldy with the frost in the nights, until I could stand it
no longer; but none ov the chaps had any duds to spare, an' I was clane
out of me head what for to do.

"One evening, howsoever, whin I were that blue with could as I could
have sarved for a Blue Pater if triced up to the mast-head, a sinsible
kind ov idea sthruck me.

"