ttle sympathy.

"Squarehead? Well, what the hell's th' odds, anyhow? If ye ain't a
squarehead, ye'r as near it 's can be!"

This is rough on old 'Sails,' whose proud boast is that he has been
"for thirty jahrs sailmake mit British sheeps in!" He goes sorrowfully
to his work, and bends over his seam with many shakings of the head.
"Skvarehedd!"

Time is drawing on, and I am getting tired of my long trick, when I see
Martin coming round the deck-house. He has donned the familiar old red
flannel shirt that he stands his wheel in, and, bareheaded as he always
is at sea, he looks a typical old salt, a Western Ocean warrior. He
mounts the lee ladder, crosses to windward in the fashion of the sea,
and stands behind me. Here, I thought, is a rare chance to get at
Martin. I give him the Mate's last steering order as I got it.

"Full an' by," I said, concealing a foolish grin; "full an' by, and no
damned shinnanikin!" Martin looked at me curiously. "No shinnanikin,"
was a new order to a man who could steer blindfold, by the wind on his
cheek; to a man who had steered great ships for perhaps half a century.
On the other hand, orders were orders, meant to be repeated as they
were given, seamanlike.

Martin squared himself, put a fresh piece of tobacco in position, and
gripped the spokes. "Full 'n' by," he said, lifting his keen old eyes
to the weather clews of the royals, "full 'n' by, 'n' no damned
shinnanikin, it is!"

XV

''OLY JOES'

"She'll be one o' them 'oly Joes; them wot cruises among th' Islands
wi' tracks an' picter books for th' bloomin' 'eathens!"

"'O--ly Joes! 'Oly Joes b' damn," said Martin. "'Oly Joes is
schooners same's mission boats on th' Gran' Banks! ... 'Oly Joes!
She's a starvation Britisher, that's wot _she_ is; a pound an' pint
ruddy limejuicer by th' set o' them trucks; sailor's misery in them
painted bloomin' ports o' her."

The subject of discussion was a full-rigged ship, standing upright in
mid-Pacific, with all her canvas furled; looking as she might be in
Queenstown Harbour awaiting orders. The south-east trades had blown us
out of the tropics, and we held a variable wind, but there was nothing
in the clean, fresh morning to cause even a Killala pilot to clew up,
and the strange sight of an idle ship in a working breeze soon drew all
hands from work and slumber, to peer over the head rail, to vent
deep-sea logic over such an odd happening.

One of the younger hands