e lining pulls out four ten pound
notes, which Sall had sewn up there by way of security; and the first
lieutenant tells Bill he was a great fool to trust his money in the shoe
of a woman who always went slipshod, and tells him to go about his
business, and stow his money away in a safer place next time. A'ter, if
any thing was better than it looked to be, the ship's company used
always to say it was like _Sall's shoe_. There you have it all."

"Well," says Stapleton, taking the pipe out of his mouth, "I know a
fact, much of a muchness with that, which happened to me when I was
below the river, tending a ship at Sheerness--for at one time, d'ye see,
I used to ply there. She was an old fifty-gun ship, called the Adamant,
if I recollect right. One day the first lieutenant, who, like yourn,
was a mighty particular sort of chap, was going round the maindeck, and
he sees an old pair of canvas trowsers stowed in under the trunnion of
one of the guns. So says he, `Whose be these?' Now, no man would
answer, because they knowed very well that it would be as good as a
fortnight in the black list. With that, the first lieutenant bundles
them out of the port, and away they floats astern with the tide. It was
about half-an-hour after that, that I comes off with the milk for the
wardroom mess, and a man named Will Heaviside says to me, `Stapleton,'
says he, `the first lieutenant has thrown my canvas trowsers overboard,
and be damned to him; now I must have them back.' `But where be they?'
says I: `I suppose down at the bottom by this time, and the flat-fish
dubbing their noses into them.' `No, no,' says he, `they wo'n't never
sink, but float till eternity; they be gone down with the tide, and they
will come back again; only you keep a sharp look-out for them, and I'll
give you five shillings if you bring them.' Well, I seed little chance
of ever seeing them again, or of my seeing five shillings, but as it so
happened next tide, the very 'denticle pair of trowsers comes up staring
me in the face. I pulls them in, and takes them to Will Heaviside, who
appears to be mightily pleased, and gives me the money. `I wouldn't
have lost them for ten, no, not fur twenty pounds,' says he. `At all
events you've paid me more than they are worth,' says I. `Have I?' says
he; `stop a bit;' and he outs with his knife, and rips open the
waistband, and pulls out a piece of linen, and out of the piece of linen
he pulls out a _child's caul_.