nuing his narrative quite
composedly. "But, you're wrong in this case, old Stormy, for `faix it's
no lie I'm telling you now,' as the doctor's Irish marine would say.
It's the plain, unadulterated truth. I had the tale from a Portuguese
monk at Funchal."

"Funchal," put in Mr Fortescue Jones, the assistant-paymaster,
caressing his whiskers as usual and cocking his eye as if he were going
to catch Larkyns tripping. "When were you there?"

"In the _Majestic_, when I was a cadet," promptly returned the mid,
taking up the cudgels at once. "It was in the same year you were tried
by court-martial for breaking your leave!"

This was a "settler" for poor Mr Jones.

"Go on, Larkyns," I said, at this point, to change the conversation and
cover the paymaster's confusion as he bent his head over his plate. "I
want to hear that yarn of yours about Madeira."

"All right, Johnny," he replied in his chaffy way; "only, you don't
pronounce the name right, my son. It should be called `My-deary,' not
`Madeir-ah.' Hang it all, Stormcock, stow that!"

"Don't apologise," said the master's mate, who just at that instant had
thrown a biscuit at Larkyns, causing the violent interjection which he
interpolated in his story. "I thought I would supply the proper
accentuation for you, that's all."

"If you don't look out and leave me alone, I will pretty soon accentuate
your nose, Stormy," retorted the other, all good humour again, as he
always was; for he took a joke, even of the most practical sort, as
freely as he perpetrated one. "Yes, Johnny Vernon, it should be called
`My-deary,' and I'll tell you why. The island, so the monk told me,
owes its origin, or rather discovery, to two lovers who fled thither in
the year fourteen hundred and something. One of these lovyers, my young
friend, was a Scotchman named Robert Matchim, and the other was a Miss
Anna D'Arfet, a young lady residing at Lisbon, whose parents objected to
Robert and refused to match her with Matchim."

Mr Stormcock pitched another biscuit immediately at Larkyns, crying out
at the same time--

"That's for your bad pun!"

The wag, however, dodged it and proceeded with his yarn.

"Being a Scotchman, although poor, as few of the nation are," proceeded
he, aiming this retaliatory shot at the master's mate, who, he knew,
hailed from the North and hadn't a spare bawbee to bless himself with,
"our friend, Robert Matchim, being as brave as he was bold, would not be
d