hear all about it," said Bryce,
seizing his friend's arm; but Lockley held back.

"No, Ned," he said; "I'm on another tack just now."

"What! not hoisted the blue ribbon, eh!"

"No," returned Lockley, with a laugh. "I've no need to do that."

"You haven't lost faith in your own power o' self-denial surely?"

"No, nor that either, but--but--"

"Come now, none o' your `buts.' Come along; my mate Dick Martin is in
here, an' he's the best o' company."

"Dick Martin in there!" repeated Lockley, on whom a sudden thought
flashed. "Is he one o' your hands?"

"In course he is. Left the Grimsby fleet a-purpose to j'ine me. Rather
surly he is at times, no doubt, but a good fellow at bottom, and great
company. You should hear him sing. Come."

"Oh, I know him well enough by hearsay, but never met him yet."

Whether it was the urgency of his friend, or a desire to meet with Dick
Martin, that shook our skipper's wavering resolution we cannot tell, but
he went into the Blue Boar, and took a glass for good-fellowship. Being
a man of strong passions and excitable nerves, this glass produced in
him a desire for a second, and that for a third, until he forgot his
intended visit to Eve, his promises to his wife, and his stern resolves
not to submit any longer to the tyranny of drink. Still, the memory of
Mrs Mooney's conduct, and of the advice of his friend Fred Martin, had
the effect of restraining him to some extent, so that he was only what
his comrades would have called a little screwed when they had become
rather drunk.

There are many stages of drunkenness. One of them is the confidential
stage. When Dick Martin had reached this stage, he turned with a
superhumanly solemn countenance to Bryce and winked.

"If--if you th-think," said Bryce thickly, "th-that winkin' suits you,
you're mistaken."

"Look 'ere," said Dick, drawing a letter from his pocket with a maudlin
leer, and holding it up before his comrade, who frowned at it, and then
shook his head--as well he might, for, besides being very illegibly
written, the letter was presented to him upside down.

After holding it before him in silence long enough to impress him with
the importance of the document, Dick Martin explained that it was a
letter which he had stolen from his sister's house, because it contained
"something to his advantage."

"See here," he said, holding the letter close to his own eyes, still
upside down, and evidently reading from memo