retorted
the owner of the Irish cousin.

"Stand by to lower the jolly-boat," cried the captain.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Lower away!"

In a few minutes we were leaping over the calm sea in the direction of
the strange ship, for the breeze had died down, and we were too eager to
meet with new faces, and to hear the sound of new voices, to wait for
the wind.

To our joy we found that the Yankee had had a gam (as I have already
said) with an English ship a few days before, so we returned to our
vessel loaded with old newspapers from England, having invited the
captain and crew of the Yankee to come aboard of us and spend the day.

While preparation was being made for the reception of our friends, we
got hold of two of the old newspapers, and Tom Lokins seized one, while
Bill Blunt got the other, and both men sat down on the windlass to
retail the news to a crowd of eager men who tried hard to listen to both
at once, and so could make nothing out of either.

"Hold hard, Tom Lokins," cried one. "What's that you say about the
Emperor, Bill?"

"The Emperor of Roosia," said Bill Blunt, reading slowly, and with
difficulty, "is--stop a bit, messmates, wot _can_ this word be?--the
Emperor of Roosia is--"

"Blowed up with gunpowder, and shattered to a thousand pieces," said Tom
Lokins, raising his voice with excitement, as he read from _his_ paper
an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India.

"Oh! come, I say, one at a time, if you please," cried a harpooner; "a
feller can't git a word of sense out of sich a jumble."

"Come, messmates," cried two or three voices, as Tom stopped suddenly,
and looked hard at the paper, "go ahead! wot have ye got there that
makes ye look as wise as an owl? Has war been and broke out with the
French?"

"I do believe he's readin' the births, marriages, and deaths," said one
of the men, peeping over Tom's shoulder.

"Read 'em out, then, can't ye?" cried another.

"I say, Bill Blunt, I think this consarns _you_," cried Tom: "isn't your
sweetheart's name Susan Croft?"

"That's a fact," said Bill, looking up from his paper, "and who has got
a word to say agin the prettiest lass in all Liverpool?"

"Nobody's got a word to say against her," replied Tom; "but she's
married, that's all."

Bill Blunt leaped up as if he had been shot, and the blood rushed to his
face, as he seized the paper, and tried to find the place.

"Where is it, Tom? let me see it with my own two eyes. O