“For a moment I sat turned to stone.  Then I put the bottle down quiet, and ’ad just got up to go when the door of the state-room opened, and I saw the drownded gal, with ’er little face and hair all wet and dripping, standing before me.

“Ted Sawyer ’as been telling everybody that I came up the companion-way like a fog-horn that ’ad lost its ma; I wonder how he’d ’ave come up if he’d ’ad the evening I had ’ad?

“They were all on the jetty as I got there and tumbled into the skipper’s arms, and all asking at once wot was the matter.  When I got my breath back a bit and told ’em, they laughed.  All except the cook, and ’e said it was only wot I might expect.  Then, like a man in a dream, I see the gal come out of the companion and walk slowly to the side.

“‘Look!’ I ses.  ‘Look.  There she is!’

“‘You’re dreaming,’ ses the skipper, ‘there’s nothing there.’

“They all said the same, even when the gal stepped on to the side and climbed on to the wharf.  She came along towards me with ’er arms held close to ’er sides, and making the most ’orrible faces at me, and it took five of’em all their time to ’old me.  The wharf and everything seemed to me to spin round and round.  Then she came straight up to me and patted me on the cheek.

“‘Pore old gentleman,’ she ses.  ‘Wot a shame it is, Ted!  It’s too bad.’

“They let go o’ me then, and stamped up and down the jetty laughing fit to kill themselves.  If they ’ad only known wot a exhibition they was making of themselves, and ‘ow I pitied them, they wouldn’t ha’ done it.  And by and by Ted wiped his eyes and put his arm round the gal’s waist and ses—­

“‘This is my intended, Miss Florrie Price,’ he ses.  ’Ain’t she a little wonder?  Wot d’ye think of ‘er?’

“‘I’ll keep my own opinion,’ I ses.  ’I ain’t got nothing to say against gals, but if I only lay my hands on that young brother of ‘ers’

“They went off agin then, worse than ever; and at last the cook came and put ’is skinny arm round my neck and started spluttering in my ear.  I shoved ‘im off hard, because I see it all then; and I should ha’ seen it afore only I didn’t ’ave time to think.  I don’t bear no malice, and all I can say is that I don’t wish ’er any harder punishment than to be married to Ted Sawyer.”