d be more'n willin' t' skipper a craft like you. You better go
ashore, cook, when you gets cleaned up, an' see what she says. Tumm,'
says he, 'is sort o' shipmates with Liz,' says he, 'an' I 'low he'll
see you through the worst of it.'

"'Will you, Tumm?' says the cook.

"'Well,' says I, 'I'll see.'

"I knowed Liz Jones from the time I fished Whoopin' Harbor with
Skipper Bill Topsail in the _Love the Wind_, bein' cotched by the
measles thereabouts, which she nursed me through; an' I 'lowed she
_would_ wed the cook if he asked her, so, thinks I, I'll go ashore
with the fool t' see that she don't. No; she isn't handsome--not Liz.
I'm wonderful fond o' yarnin' o' good-lookin' maids, as you knows,
Skipper Nicholas, sir; but I can't say much o' Liz: for Liz is so far
t' l'eward o' beauty that many a time, lyin' sick there in the
fo'c's'le o' the _Love the Wind_, I wished the poor girl would turn
inside out, for, thinks I, the pattern might be a sight better on the
other side. I _will_ say she is big and well-muscled; an' muscles, t'
my mind, counts enough t' make up for black eyes, but not for
cross-eyes, much less for fuzzy whiskers. It ain't in my heart t' make
sport o' Liz; but I _will_ say she has a bad foot, for she was born in
a gale, I'm told, when the _Preacher_ was hangin' on off a lee shore
'long about Cape Harrigan, an' the sea was raisin' the devil. An',
well--I hates t' say it, but--well, they call her 'Walrus Liz.' No;
she isn't handsome, she haven't got no good looks; but once you gets a
look into whichever one o' them cross-eyes you is able to cotch, you
see a deal more'n your own face; an' she _is_ well-muscled, an' I 'low
I'm goin' t' tell you so, for I wants t' name her good p'ints so well
as her bad. Whatever--

"'Cook,' says I, 'I'll go along o' you.'

"With that Moses Shoos fell to on the dishes, an' 'twasn't long afore
he was ready to clean hisself; which done, he was ready for the
courtin'. But first he got out his dunny-bag, an' he fished in there
'til he pulled out a blue stockin', tied in a hard knot; an' from the
toe o' that there blue stockin' he took a brass ring. 'I 'low,' says
he, talkin' to hisself, in the half-witted way he has, 'it won't do no
hurt t' give her mother's ring. "Moses," says mother, "you better take
the ring off my finger. It isn't no weddin'-ring," says she, "for I
never was what you might call wed by a real parson in the fashionable
way, but on'y accordin' t' the custo