at would ye call this
now--a landscape or a portrait?"

"I would call it a marine piece," said Stanley.

"How much, sir?" asked Dick Moy, who had got upon the wooden ring of the
buoy, and was standing thereon attempting, but not very successfully, to
paint in that position.

"A mareeny-piece, you noodle," cried Billy; "don't ye onderstand the
genel'm'n wot's a sittin' on judgment on 'ee? A mareeny-piece is a
piece o' mareeny or striped kaliko, w'ich is all the same, and wery poor
stuff it is too. Come, I'll stand it no longer. I hold ye in sich
contempt that I _must_ look down on 'ee."

So saying, the active little fellow seized the boat-hook, and swung
himself lightly on the buoy, the top of which he gained after a severe
scramble, amid the indignant shouts of the men.

"Well, since you have gone up there, we'll keep you there till we are
done."

"All right, my hearties," retorted Billy, in great delight and
excitement, as the men went on with their work.

Just then another heave of the swell drew the boat away, obliging the
painters to lean far over the side as before, pointing towards their
"pictur," as Jerry called it, but unable to touch it, though expecting
every moment to swing within reach again. Suddenly Billy Towler--while
engaged, no doubt, in some refined piece of mischief--slipped and fell
backwards with a loud cry. His head struck the side of the boat in
passing, as he plunged into the sea.

"Ah, the poor craitur!" cried Jerry MacGowl, immediately plunging after
him.

Now, it happened that Jerry could not swim a stroke, but his liking for
the boy, and the suddenness of the accident, combined with his reckless
disposition, rendered him either forgetful of or oblivious to that fact.
Instead of doing any good, therefore, to Billy, he rendered it
necessary for the men to give their undivided attention to hauling his
unwieldy carcase into the boat.

The tide was running strong at the time. Billy rose to the surface, but
showed no sign of life. He was sinking again, when Stanley Hall plunged
into the water like an arrow, and caught him by the hair.

Stanley was a powerful swimmer, but he could make no headway against the
tide that was running to the southward at the time, and before the men
had succeeded in dragging their enthusiastic but reckless comrade into
the boat, Billy and his friend had been swept to a considerable
distance. As soon as the oars were shipped, however, they were quick