ugly yalle'r face now toorned this way
foreninst you, Misther Gray-ham. Begorra hee don't look a day oulder,
if a troifle uglier since I sayed him last!"

"And is he a Chinaman?" I asked, full of curiosity; "a real, live
Chinaman from the East?"

"Be jabers he is, ivery inch av him from his blissid ould pigtail, tied
up with a siezin' of ropeyarn, down to his rum wooden brogues an' all,
the craythur!" replied Tim, stretching out his big hairy fist to the
other, who had advanced on seeing him and stopped just abreast, his
saffron-coloured face puckered up into a sort of wrinkled smile of
pleasure at meeting an old shipmate like the boatswain, who said in his
hearty way: "Hallo, ye ould son av a gun! Who'd a-thought av sayin' ye
ag'in in the ould barquey, Ching Wang? Glad ye're a-comin' with us, an'
hopes ye're all roight!"

"Chin-chin, Mass' Looney," answered the Chinee, putting his monkey-like
paw into Tim's broad palm and shaking hands cordially in English
fashion. "Me belly well, muchee sank you. Me fetchee chow-chow number
one chop when you wauchee."

"Aye, that's roight, me joker; if ye say that I gits me groob whin I
wants it, we'll be A1 friends an' have no squalls atwane us," said my
friend the boatswain as the Chinaman passed along the deck to the
forward deck-house, entering the galley as if he knew the way well, Tim
adding as he got out of hearing: "The ig'rant haythin, he nivir can
spake me name roight; allers callin' me `looney,' jist as if I wor a
blissid omahdawn loike himsilf!"

Meanwhile, the other men who had come on board, most of whom were fine
strapping fellows, as if Captain Gillespie had selected them carefully,
scrambled past us to their quarters in the forecastle, the boatswain
scanning them keenly with his sharp seaman's eye as they went by, and
commenting on their appearance; some being sturdy and having decent
chests of clothes, which they lugged after them, while others looked
lean and half starved, carrying their few belongings in bags, which
showed that they had little or nothing beyond what they stood up in, and
were but ill provided for the long voyage we were about to take.

Tim shook his head at these latter.

"Begorra, thay're as lane as Job's toorkey, an' that wor all skin an'
faythers," he muttered. "Thay'll pick up, though, whin they gits out to
say an' has a good bit av salt joonk insoide av 'em, instid av the poor
livin' thay've hid av late."

As soon as the men