y to soften; and it was already part
as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he
volunteered some sketch of his annoyances.

"A pretty mess we've had!" said he. "Half the stores were wrong; I'll
wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. Then two newspaper
beasts came down, and tried to raise copy out of me, till I threatened
them with the first thing handy; and then some kind of missionary bug,
wanting to work his passage to Raiatea or somewhere. I told him I would
take him off the wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away
cursing. This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him."

While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant
abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once
quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both curious and
knowing.

"One word, dear boy," he said, turning suddenly to me. And when he had
drawn me on deck, "That man," says he, "will carry sail till your hair
grows white; but never you let on, never breathe a word. I know his
line: he'll die before he'll take advice; and if you get his back up,
he'll run you right under. I don't often jam in my advice, Loudon; and
when I do, it means I'm thoroughly posted."

The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished, under
the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent feeling and
with some hilarity. Mamie, in a plush Gainsborough hat and a gown of
wine-coloured silk, sat, an apparent queen, among her rude surroundings
and companions. The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant
trimness: tarry Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in
that poor place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of
her admirers, caught a spark of admiration; and even the captain, who
was in no courtly humour, proposed that the scene should be commemorated
by my pencil. It was the last act of the evening. Hurriedly as I went
about my task, the half-hour had lengthened out to more than three
before it was completed: Mamie in full value, the rest of the party
figuring in outline only, and the artist himself introduced in a back
view, which was pronounced a likeness. But it was to Mamie that I
devoted the best of my attention; and it was with her I made my chief
success.

"O!" she cried, "am I really like that? No wonder Jim ..." She paused.
"Why it's just as lovely as he's good!" she cried: an epigram which was
appreciated, and repeated