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the usual privations, incidental to the life of a sailor; but, as there was nothing particularly worthy of notice in the first seven or eight years of my sailor's life, I shall pass at once to the most interesting event in a career of no trifling variety. It is now upwards of two years since I went out chief mate of my old ship, under the command of my first friend, Captain Fleetwood, who was a clever, active seaman himself, and well qualified to make those under him the same. We had a crew of twenty-five young and able fellows, with, as usual, a sprinkling of black sheep among them. Our passengers were four in number--a gentleman and his wife, and two young ladies, going out to Bombay under their protection; all agreeable and well-informed people, and the young ladies blessed with a tolerable share of beauty. Time passed very pleasantly with us, for we were uncommonly favoured in wind and weather; and our captain, who was as kind and benevolent as a man, as he was strict and unflinching as an officer, delighted in promoting to the utmost every plan for the comfort and amusement of the crew. "Och, isn't he a broth of a boy, now, that captain of ours?" I heard one of our men say to another, on one of the quiet tropical evenings, when the crew were enjoying themselves in the "waist," and the captain was whirling one of the ladies round in a waltz on the quarterdeck. "He's as full of fun as a monkey." "Take care you don't shave the monkey too close, though, Mike, or perhaps the _cat_ will shave _you_." "Is it the cat you mane?" replied Mike; "then, by the powers, it's myself that's not afeered for the 'cat,' for she never wags her tail here but when a man's either an ass or a skulk, and no man can say black's the white of the eye of Mike Delaney. But I say, Tom, hasn't this been an out-and-out passage? Why, we've never had nothing to do but to spin yarns and knot them; we might have stowed away the reef-points in the hold, we've never had no 'casion for them, and as for salt water, we haven't had a breeze to wash our faces for us since we left home. Blowed if we shan't get too fine for our work by and by--reg'lar gentlemen afloat. I think I'll sport a pair of them overalls that the long-shore beggars call gloves, to keep my flippers white," said Mike--at the same time spreading out a pair as dirty as the back of a chimney and as broad as the back of a skate. "Gloves and delicate flippers like that!" answered his
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