way in his pockets and kept them there at
all times, save when necessity compelled him to draw them forth.

"Very odd," remarked Captain Dunning, looking at his black straw hat
which lay on the table before him, as if the remark were addressed to
it--"very odd if, having swallowed the cow, I should now be compelled to
worry at the tail."

As the black straw hat made no reply, the captain looked up at the
ceiling, but not meeting with any response from that quarter, he looked
out at the window and encountered the gaze of a seaman flattening his
nose on a pane of glass, and looking in.

The captain smiled. "Ah! here's a tail at last," he said, as the seaman
disappeared, and in another moment reappeared at the door with his hat
in his hand.

It may be necessary, perhaps, to explain that Captain Dunning had just
succeeded in engaging a first-rate crew for his next whaling voyage
(which was the "cow" he professed to have swallowed), with the exception
of a cook (which was the "tail," at which he feared he might be
compelled to worry).

"You're a cook, are you?" he asked, as the man entered and nodded.

"Yes, sir," answered the "tail," pulling his forelock.

"And an uncommonly ill-favoured rascally-looking cook you are," thought
the captain; but he did not say so, for he was not utterly regardless of
men's feelings. He merely said, "Ah!" and then followed it up with the
abrupt question--

"Do you drink?"

"Yes, sir, and smoke too," replied the "tail," in some surprise.

"Very good; then you can go," said the captain, shortly.

"Eh!" exclaimed the man:

"You can go," repeated the captain. "You won't suit. My ship is a
temperance ship, and all the hands are teetotalers. I have found from
experience that men work better, and speak better, and in every way act
better, on tea and coffee than on spirits. I don't object to their
smoking; but I don't allow drinkin' aboard my ship; so you won't do, my
man. Good-morning."

The "tail" gazed at the captain in mute amazement.

"Ah! you may look," observed the captain, replying to the gaze; "but you
may also mark my words, if you will. I've not sailed the ocean for
thirty years for nothing. I've seen men in hot seas and in cold--on
grog, and on tea--and _I_ know that coffee and tea carry men through the
hardest work better than grog. I also know that there's a set o' men in
this world who look upon teetotalers as very soft chaps--old wives, in
fact. Very good,"