“‘By Jove! if we only could,’ ses the skipper, getting excited too.

“‘We can try,’ ses the mate.  ‘Why, we could have noosed it this mornin’ if we had liked; and if it breaks the lines we must blow its head to pieces with the gun.’

“It seemed a most eggstraordinary thing to try and catch it that way; but the beast was so tame, and stuck so close to us, that it wasn’t quite so ridikilous as it seemed at fust.

“Arter a couple o’ days nobody minded the animal a bit, for it was about the most nervous thing of its size you ever saw.  It hadn’t got the soul of a mouse; and one day when the second mate, just for a lark, took the line of the foghorn in his hand and tooted it a bit, it flung up its ‘ead in a scared sort o’ way, and, after backing a bit, turned clean round and bolted.

“I thought the skipper ‘ud have gone mad.  He chucked over loaves o’ bread, bits o’ beef and pork, an’ scores o’ biskits, and by-and-bye, when the brute plucked up heart an’ came arter us again, he fairly beamed with joy.  Then he gave orders that nobody was to touch the horn for any reason whatever, not even if there was a fog, or chance of collision, or anything of the kind; an’ he also gave orders that the bells wasn’t to be struck, but that the bosen was just to shove ’is ’ead in the fo’c’s’le and call ’em out instead.

“Arter three days had passed, and the thing was still follering us, everybody made certain of taking it to New York, an’ I b’leeve if it hadn’t been for Joe Cooper the question about the sea-sarpint would ha’ been settled long ago.  He was a most eggstraordinary ugly chap was Joe.  He had a perfic cartoon of a face, an’ he was so delikit-minded and sensitive about it that if a chap only stopped in the street and whistled as he passed him, or pointed him out to a friend, he didn’t like it.  He told me once when I was symperthizing with him, that the only time a woman ever spoke civilly to him was one night down Poplar way in a fog, an’ he was so ’appy about it that they both walked into the canal afore he knew where they was.

“On the fourth morning, when we was only about three days from Sandy Hook, the skipper got out o’ bed wrong side, an’ when he went on deck he was ready to snap at anybody, an’ as luck would have it, as he walked a bit forrard, he sees Joe a-sticking his phiz over the side looking at the sarpint.

“‘What the d—­ are you doing?’ shouts the skipper, ’What do you mean by it?’

“‘Mean by what, sir?’ asks Joe.

“‘Putting your black ugly face over the side o’ the ship an’ frightening my sea-sarpint!’ bellows the skipper, ‘You know how easy it’s skeered.’

“‘Frightening the sea-sarpint?’ ses Joe, trembling all over, an’ turning very white.

“‘If I see that face o’ yours over the side agin, my lad,’ ses the skipper very fierce, ‘I’ll give it a black eye.  Now cut!’

“Joe cut, an’ the skipper, having worked off some of his ill-temper, went aft again and began to chat with the mate quite pleasant like.  I was down below at the time, an’ didn’t know anything about it for hours arter, and then I heard it from one o’ the firemen.  He comes up to me very mysterious like, an’ ses, ‘Bill,’ he ses, ‘you’re a pal o’ Joe’s; come down here an’ see what you can make of ‘im.’