ose days, Jo's amiability was frequently put to
the test. He sojourned, while there, in a condition of alternate calm
and storm; but riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his
checkered life, and lit up its most somber phases like gleams of light
on an April day.

"You entered my service with your own consent," replied the captain to
Jo's last remark, "and you may leave it, with the same consent, whenever
you choose; but you will please to remember that I did not engage you to
serve on board the schooner. Back there you do not go either with or
without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent on going to
sea on your own account.--you've got a pair of good arms and legs,--you
can swim! Besides," continued the captain, dropping the tone of sarcasm
in which this was said, and assuming a more careless and good-natured
air, "you were singing something not long since, if I mistake not, about
'farewell to the rolling sea,' which leads me to think you will not
object to a short cruise on shore for a change, especially on such a
beautiful island as this is."

"I'm your man, capting," cried the impulsive seaman, at the same time
giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round. "And, to say
wot's the plain truth, d'ye see, I'm not sorry to ha' done with your
schooner; for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could
wish for to go to sea in, I can't say much for the crew,--saving your
presence, Dick," he added, glancing over his shoulder at the
surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar. "Of all the rascally set I
ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst. If I didn't know you
for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I'd take ye for a pirate."

"Don't speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo," said the
captain, with a slight frown. "No good and true man ever does that."

"No more I do," replied John Bumpus, while a deep red color suffused
his bronzed countenance. "No more I do, leastwise if they wos here I'd
say it to their faces; for they're a set of as ill-tongued villains as I
ever had the misfortune to--"

"Silence!" exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder.

Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such a man,
but John Bumpus was one of those few. He did indeed remain silent for
two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment.

"Capting," said he, seriously, "I don't mean no offense, but I'd have
you to know that I engaged to