her, for he's goin' across to see the _Giacopo_, I know, an', by
thunder, he'll fix her! Never seen him in a fix yet. Eh, Nicholas?"

"Ah, he's a sharpun, by God!" This from the fervent Nicholas.

"Ses he, first thing when he put his fut on the deck when we
brought the _Ludovico_ into Shields from Nikolaeff, ses he, 'Honna,
look at them slack funnel stays; Honna, look at that spare propeller
shaft, not painted; Honna, don't keep pigs on the saddle-back
bunker-hatch--'tis insanitary.' Honna this, that, and the other all in
one breath. And we'd had the blessed stern torn out of her, runnin'
foul o' the breakwater, to say nothin' of pickin' up the telegraph
cable with our anchor outside Constant!"

"Mr. Honna, tell me----"

"To-morrow, mister, to-morrow. 'Tis late, and I would turn in."

And so we end our day.

XIV

To-day's shipping news has it thus:--

_Swansea._--_Entered inwards_, _s.s. Benvenuto_. From S.
Africa. P. W. D.

Which cryptic item covers much joy, much money, and an irrepressible
consumption of strong drink. O ye rabid total-abstinence mongers! If I
could only lure you away on a six-thousand-mile voyage, make you work
twelve hours a day, turn you out on the middle watch, feed you on
bully beef and tinned milk! Where would your blue ribbons be then? My
faith, gentlemen, when once you had been paid off at the bottom of
Wind Street, I warrant me we should not see your backs for dust as you
sprinted into the nearest hostelry!

And the joy, moreover, of receiving three months' pay in one lump sum!
Ah! one is rich as he pushes past the green baize swing-door, and
through the crowd of seamen and sharks who cluster like flies round
that same green door. To the married sailor, however, that joy is
chastened by the knowledge that his "judy" has been drawing half-pay
all the time, and to say nothing of the advance note of two-pound-ten
which he drew on joining, to buy clothes. But Jack Tar or Jack Trimmer
knows well how to drown such worries. He possesses an infinite
capacity for taking liquor, which inevitably goes, not to his head,
but to his feet. Six of the _Benvenuto's_ sailor-men, two firemen,
and the carpenter enter our private bar as we sit drinking. An
indescribable uproar invades the room immediately. They are in their
best clothes--decent boots, ready-made blue serge, red tie with green
spots over a six-penny-halfpenny "dickey," and a cap that would make
even Newmarket "stare