the ground,
"And you shall have my daughter,
And twenty thousand pound."

"Don't let him up, dear sweetheart,
The portion is too small."
"O stay your hand," the old man said,
"And you shall have it all."

The lawyer was loud in his admiration of this classical piece, and what
he afterwards found was The Crew's original and only tune. "That was the
kind of wife for a poor man," remarked Sylvanus, meditatively; "but she
was mighty hard on her old dad."

"They're a poor lot, the whole pack of them," said the lawyer, savagely,
thinking of the quandary in which he and his friend were placed.

"Who is?" asked The Crew.

"Why, the women, to be sure."

"Look here, Mister, my name may be Sylvanus, but I know I'm pretty
rough, for all that. But, rough as I am, I don't sit quiet and let any
man, no, not as good friends as you and me has been, say a word agin the
wimmen. When I think o' these yere gals as was in this blessed schooner
last summer, I feel it my juty, bein' I'm one o' them as helped to sail
her then, to stand up fer all wimmen kind, and, no offence meant. I
guess your own mother's one o' the good sort, now wasn't she?"

"I should say she is," replied Coristine; "there are splendid women in
the world, but they're all married."

"That don't stand to reason, nohow," said The Crew, with gravity, "'cos
there was a time wonst when they wasn't married, and if they was good
arter they was good afore. And, moreover, what was, is, and ever shall
be, Amen!"

"All right, Sylvanus, we won't quarrel over them, and to show I bear no
malice, I'll sing a song about the sex," whereupon he trolled out:
"Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Wilkinson came running aft
when he heard the strain, and cried: "Good heavens! Coristine, whatever
has got into you, are you mad or intoxicated?"

"I'll bet you your boots and your bottom dollar that he ain't that,
Mister," interposed The Crew, "fer you couldn't scare up liquor enough
on this yere _Susan Thomas_ to turn the head of a canary."

"We are exchanging musical treats," said Coristine in defence. "Sylvanus
here favoured me with an old ballad, not in the Percy collection, and I
have been giving him one of the songs from the dramatists."

"But about women!" protested the dominie.

"There ain't no songs that ain't got somethin' about women in 'em that's
wuth a cent," indignantly replied The Crew, and Wilkinson sullenly
retired to the bow.