blue smoke of their pipes came puffing out like
cannon shots, first from the one and then from the other, like two
frigates saluting.

After they had smoked on awhile in silence, Worse said: "The sea can
be very fine on such a summer evening. Your health."

"The sea is always fine, Jacob. Your health."

"Well, as long as one is young."

"Young! why, you are not more than three years my senior; and that
Thomas Randulf has no idea of sneaking to the shore for the next ten
years, you may be certain."

"It is otherwise with me. There is something wrong in my inside, you
must know."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Randulf. "I don't know much about liver and
lungs, and all the trash they say we have in our insides, but what I
do know is, that a seafaring man is never well on shore, just as a
landsman is as sick as a cat when he comes on board. That is a fact,
and it is not to be gainsaid."

Jacob Worse had nothing to say in answer to this speech, he only
grumbled, and rubbed his hands across his stomach.

"Have you tried Riga balsam?" inquired Randulf.

"Are you out of your senses? It is my inside that is bad."

"Don't you suppose that Riga balsam is good for the inside, too? If
you only get the right sort, it is good for everything, inboard and
outboard. I ought to know that. However, it is not your stomach that
is wrong," added Randulf, profoundly, "it is rather your heart. It is
these women who play the mischief with you, when they get you in tow;
I have noticed it both in the Mediterranean and the Baltic. This last
affair, however, has been the worst. These pious ones, you see----"

"Mind what you say about Sarah. She has been a real blessing to me.
What should I, an ailing old man, have been without her?"

"You would not have become an old man but for her," Randulf blurted
out. But at this Worse looked so ferocious, that his friend took a
long sip, and followed it by a fit of coughing.

"No, no," said Worse, when he, too, had refreshed himself. "She has
been a good wife to me, both as regards body and soul. I have learnt
much from her of which I was ignorant before."

"Yes, that's true, Jacob. You have learnt to sit behind the stove
like an old crone, and to dangle at the apronstrings of the women.
You have been dragged to meeting as tamely as a Spanish monk's mule;
that is what you have learnt."

"Gently, Thomas," said Worse, nodding significantly. "You are proving
the truth of my words. Such as you are, I was;