face. "Alannah macree, me poor gossoon!
it's pitying ye I am, by me sowl, from the bottom av me heart. Ye're
loike a young bear wid all y'r throubles an' thrials forenenst ye. Aye,
yez have, as sure's me name's Tim Rooney, me darlint!"

"Why do you say so, sir?" I asked--more, however, out of curiosity than
alarm, for I thought he was only trying to "take a rise out of me," as
the saying goes. "Why should you pity me?"

"An' is it axin' why, yez are?" said he, his broad smile expanding into
a chuckle and the chuckle growing to a laugh. "Sure, an' ye'll larn
afore ye're much ouldher, that the joker who goes to say for fun moight
jist as well go to the ould jintleman's place down below in the
thropical raygions for divarshun, plaize the pigs!"

His genial manner, and the merry twinkle in his eyes, which reminded me
of father's when he made some comical remark, utterly contradicted his
disparaging comments on a sailor's life, and I joined in the hearty "ho,
ho, ho!" with which he concluded his statement.

"Why, then, did you go to sea, Mr Rooney," I asked, putting him into a
quandary with this home-thrust; "that is, if it is such a bad place as
you make out?"

"Bedad, sorry o' me knows!" he replied, shoving his battered cheese-
cutter cap further off his brows and scratching his head reflectively.
"Sure, an' it's bin a poozzle to me, sorr, iver since I furst wint afore
the mast."

"But--" I went on, wishing to pursue my inquiries, when he interrupted
me before I was able to proceed any further.

"Whisht! Be aisy now, me darlint," he whispered, with an expressive
wink; and, turning round sharply on the stevedores, who, taking
advantage of his talking to me, had struck work and were indulging in a
similar friendly chat, he began briskly to call them to task for their
idleness, raising his voice to the same stentorian pitch that had
startled me just now on our first introduction.

"What the mischief are ye standin' star-gazin' there for, ye lazy swabs,
chatterin' an' grinnin' away loike a parcel av monkeys?" he cried,
waving his arms about as if he were going to knock some of them down.
"If I had my way wid ye, an' had got ye aboord a man-o'-war along o' me,
it's `four bag' I'd give ivery man Jack o' ye. Hoist away an' be blowed
to ye, or I'll stop y'r pay, by the howly pokher I will!"

At this, the men, who seemed to understand very well that my friend of
the woollen jersey and canvas overalls's hard voice