he article in question and smiled feebly.

"On'y two days, and they would ha' been married," said Joe; "bit 'ard,
ain't it? I'm glad as I can be as he's safe, but he might ha' waited a
day or two longer."

"Did George seem scared?" enquired his friend.

"Wot's that got to do with it?" demanded Joe, violently. "Are you goin'
to set that 'ead-piece to work or are you not?"

Mr. Green coughed confusedly, and attempted to think with a brain which
was already giddy with responsibility.

"I don't want to do anything that isn't straight and gentlemanly," he
remarked.

"Straight?" repeated Joe. "Look 'ere! Cap'n Fraser's our old man, ain't
he? Very good, it's our dooty to stand by 'im. But, besides that, it's
for the young lady's sake: it's easy to see that she's as fond of him
as she can be, and she's that sort o' young lady that if she come up now
and told me to jump overboard, I'd do it."

"You could swim ashore easy," asserted Mr. Green.

"They was to be married Thursday morning," continued Joe, "and now
here's Cap'n Flower and no 'ead-piece on the ship. Crool, I call it."

"She's a very nice young lady," said the mortified Mr. Green; "always a
pleasant smile for everybody."

"He'll come aboard 'ere as safe as heggs is heggs," said Joe,
despondently. "Wot's to be done?"

He folded his arms on the side and stood ruefully watching the stairs.
He was quite confident that there were head-pieces walking the earth,
to which a satisfactory solution of this problem would have afforded no
difficulty whatever, and he shook his own sadly, as he thought of its
limitations.

"It only wants a little artfulness, Will-yum," he suggested,
encouragingly.

"Get hold of him and make him drunk for three days," murmured Mr. Green,
in a voice so low that he half hoped Joe would not hear it.

"And then boil 'im," said the indignant seaman, without looking round.
"Ah! Here he comes. Now you've got to be astonished, mind; but don't
make a noise, in case it fetches the young lady up."

He pointed to the stairs, and his friend, going to his side, saw a
passenger just stepping into a boat. The two men then turned away until,
at sight of Captain Flower's head appearing above the side, they went
off into such silent manifestations of horror and astonishment that he
feared for their reason.

"It's 'is voice," said Joe, hastily, as Flower bawled out to them with
inconsiderate loudness. "I never thought to see you ag'in, sir; I 'eard
yo