ou, they'd a'
gone anywheres to win a smile from his cheery face. Hullo, though, sir,
look there, they're shutting up the dockyard gate!"

Such indeed was the case, showing that the afternoon was pretty nearly
"expended," as they say in the service.

"Ah! that comes along o' yarning with you and not minding the business
that brought me down here, for now I'm too late."

"Well, in that case," said I, seeing my chance now for getting the oft-
evaded yarn of my friend's long service, "suppose you come home to my
place and have a cup of tea, when you can tell me the story of your
shipwreck off Madagascar, eh?"

He hemmed and hawed for a moment; but seeing that my invitation was
cordially given, and I suppose having nothing else particularly to do,
he accepted--whence this story.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

WIND AND STEAM.

When I had made the pensioner as comfortable as I could at my little
place--attending carefully to the wants of his inner man before
appearing to have any curiosity regarding the matter that had made me
invite him home--and the tea-things were cleared away, I gave a sort of
inquiring cough, which he immediately took as my signal for him to begin
his yarn.

"After serving a year in the _London_, as I told you before, sir," he
commenced, without any preliminary beating about the bush, as many a
landsman would have done, "I was drafted on to an old cruiser called the
_Dolphin_. She's been broken up now, like the old _London_, though I
hear they've got a rare smart despatch-boat just building called by the
same name; but the _Dolphin_ as I'm speaking of is quite different and
not the same vessel--remember that, sir, please, in case anybody should
try to throw doubts on my yarn, as some of them sea-lawyers will."

"I assure you," said I to encourage him, "that I am quite satisfied as
to the truth of your story."

"Well, then," he resumed, "the _Dolphin_ I am speaking of to you, sir,
was a pretty fast boat for a paddle-steamer, and had already made some
tidy captures of slave-dhows--that is, since she had been commissioned
and sent out from England, about six months before, to replace an old
sailing brig that formerly did duty on the station as tender to the old
_London_; so I fully expected when I jined her to have some smart work
afore me--and I warn't disapinted neither!"

"No?" said I questioningly to lead him on, settling myself cosily in my
chair.

"You're right, sir, I warn't," repli