and words did not
really mean the terrible threats they conveyed, although the speaker
intended to be obeyed, started again briskly shipping the cargo and
lowering it down into the hold, grinning the while one to another as if
expressing the opinion that their taskmaster's bark was worse than his
bite.

"I must kape 'em stirrin' their stoomps, or ilse, sure, the spalpeens
'ud strike worrk the minnit me back's toorned," said he on resuming his
talk with me, as if in explanation of this little interlude. "Yez aid
y'r name's Grame, didn't ye? I once knew a Grame belongin' to Cork, an'
he wor a pig jobber. S'pose now, he warn't y'r ould father, loike?"

"Certainly not!" cried I, indignantly. "My father is a clergyman and a
gentleman and an Englishman, and lives down in the country. Our name,
too, is Graham and not Grame, as you pronounce it."

"'Pon me conshinsh, I axes y'r pardin, sorr. Sure, an' I didn't mane no
harrm," said my friend, apologising in the most handsome way for the
unintentional insult; and, putting out a brawny hairy paw like that of
Esau's, he gave a grip to my poor little mite of a hand that made each
knuckle crack, as he introduced himself in rough and hearty sailor
fashion. "Me name's Tim Rooney, as I tould you afore, Misther Gray-
ham--sure, an' it's fond I am ov bacon, avic, an' ham, too, by the same
token! I'd have ye to know, as ye're a foorst-class apprentice--which
kills me enthirely wid the laffin' sure!--that I'm the bosun av the
Silver Quane; an' as we're agoin' to be shipmets togither, I hopes
things'll be moighty plisint atwane us, sure."

"I'm sure I hope so, too," I replied eagerly, thinking him an awfully
jolly fellow, and very unlike the man I imagined him to be at first; and
we then shook hands again to cement the compact of eternal friendship,
although I took care this time that my demonstrative boatswain should
not give me so forcible a squeeze with his huge fist as before,
observing as I looked round the vessel and up at her towering masts
overhead: "What a splendid ship!"

"Aye, she's all that, ivery inch of her from truck to kelson," he
answered equally enthusiastically; "an' so's our foorst mate, a sailor
all over from the sole av his fut to the crown av his hid."

"And the captain," I inquired, "what sort of a man is he?"

"Arrah, now you're axin' questions," he rejoined with a sly look from
his roguish eyes. "D'ye happen to know what's inside av an egg, now,
wh