said, in a sleepy fashion, "Why, it's as cold as
ever!"

I tried to speak, but couldn't. The doctor answered him, though, by
saying, "How did you get here?"

"Well," said the figure, drowsily, "that means a yarn; and if I warn't
so plaguey sleepy, I'd--Heigho!--ha!--hum!--Well, here goes!"

We sat quite awe-stricken, not a man stirring more than to put a bit of
pigtail in his mouth, while the English sailor thus spun his yarn:--

CHAPTER TWO.

THE ENGLISH SAILOR'S YARN.

You see, I haven't the trick of putting it together, or else, I dare
say, I could spin you no end of a yarn out of many a queer thing I've
come across, and many a queer thing that's happened to me up and down.

Well, yes, I've been wrecked three times, and I've been aboard when a
fire's broken out, and I've seen some fighting--close work some of it,
and precious hot; and I was once among savages, and there was one that
was a kind of a princess among 'em--But there, that's no story, and
might happen to any man.

If I were Atlantic Jones now, I could tell you a story worth listening
to. Atlantic Jones was made of just the kind of stuff they make heroes
out of for story books. He _was_ a rum 'un was J. If I could spin a
yarn about anything, it ought to be about him, now. I only wish I
could.

Why was he called Atlantic? I can't rightly say. I don't think he was
christened so. I think it was a name he took himself. It was to pass
off the Jones, which was not particularly imposing without the first
part for the trade he belonged to. He was a play-actor.

I don't think he had ever done any very great things at it before I met
with him; anyhow, he was rather down on his luck just then, and shabby--
well, anything nearer rags, and yet making believe to have an air of
gentility about it, I never came across. I don't remember ever having a
boot-heel brought so directly under my observation which was so
wonderfully trodden down on one side. In a moment of confidence, too,
he showed me a hole in the right boot-sole that he had worn benefit
cards over, on the inside--some of the unsold ones remaining from his
last ticket night.

I was confoundedly hard up myself about that time, having just come
ashore from a trip in one of those coffin-ships, as they call them now.
"Run" they wanted to make out, but it wasn't much of a run, either. The
craft was so rotten, there were hardly two planks sticking properly
together, and the last man had