r," cried the general. "Where is the island?"

"What island?"

"The island where my child is wrecked."

"What, are you the gal's father?" said Joshua, with a sudden touch of
feeling.

"I am, sir. Pray withhold nothing from me you know."

"Why, cunule," said the Yankee, soothingly; "don't I tell you it's a
buster? However, the lie is none o' mine, it's that old cuss Skinflint
set it afloat; he is always pisoning these peaceful waters."

Rolleston asked eagerly who Skinflint was, and where he could be found.

"Wal, he is a sorter sea Jack-of-all-trades, etarnally cruising about to
buy gratis--those he buys of call it stealing. Got a rotten old cutter,
manned by his wife and fam'ly. They get coal out of me for fur, and sell
the coal at double my price; they kill seals and dress the skins aboard;
kill fish and salt 'em aboard. Ye know when that fam'ly is at sea by the
smell that pervades the briny deep an' heralds their approach. Yesterday
the air smelt awful. So I said to Vespasian here, 'I think that sea-skunk
is out, for there's something a-pisoning the cerulean waves an'
succumambient air.' We hadn't sailed not fifty miles more before we run
agin him. Their clothes were drying all about the rigging. Hails me, the
varmint does. Vesp and I, we work the printing-press together, an' so
order him to looward, not to taint our Otaheitans, that stink of ile at
home, but I had 'em biled before I'd buy 'em, an' now they're vilets.
'Wal now, Skinflint,' says I; 'I reckon you're come to bring me that
harpoon o' mine you stole last time you was at my island?' 'I never saw
your harpoon,' says he; 'I want to know have you come across the
_Springbok?'_ 'Mebbe I have,' says I; 'why do you ask?' 'Got news for
her,' says he; 'and can't find her nowheres.' So then we set to and
fenced a bit; and this old varmint, to put me off the truth, told me the
buster. A month ago or more he was boarded--by a duck. And this yar duck
had a writing tied to his leg, and this yar writing said an English gal
was wrecked on an island, and put down the very longitude. 'Show me that
duck,' says I, ironical. 'D'ye take us for fools?' says he; 'we ate the
duck for supper.' 'That was like ye,' says I; 'if an angel brought your
pardon down from heights celestial, you'd roast him, and sell his
feathers for swan's-down; mebbe ye ate the writing? I know y' are a
hungry lot.' 'The writing is in my cabin,' says he. 'Show it me,' says I,
'an' mebbe I'll believe