set in my notion the ship would live the
gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to
make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The
last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,--'Good-bye,
Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city,
to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was
telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was
to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale
had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a
fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.

"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that,
when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember
anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was
poking about decks as if I was looking for something.

"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see
_you_ again in _this_ world.'

"'I can't find my razor-strop,' says I; I've lost my razor-strop.'

"'Never mind your strop,' says he. 'What you want is to go aboard the
tug and be taken care of. We'll find your strop.'

"Well, they could hardly get me away, I was so set that I must have that
strop; but after I got up to town, and had a bath and some breakfast,
and a couple of hours' sleep or so, I was all right again. That was the
end of old Tucker's going to sea; and when the 'Moscow' was docked and
refitted, I got her, and kept her until the firm built me the 'Pogram,'
here."

"Mr. Brown, isn't it about time we were getting in that mizzen
to'gall'nt-s'l? It's coming on to blow to-night."

"Steward," (as that functionary passed us,) "put a handful of cigars in
my monkey-jacket pocket, and have a cup of coffee ready for me about
twelve."

"Then you mean to be up, to-night?" said the father of pretty Mrs.
Bates,--the only one of us to whom Captain Cope fairly opened his heart.

"Why, yes, Mr. Roberts--I think I shall. It looks rather dirty to the
east'ard, and the barometer has fallen since morning. I've two as good
mates as sail; but if anything is going to happen, I'd rather have it
happen when I'm on deck,--that's all."

"Wasn't Stewart, of the 'Mexican,' below, when she struck?"

"Yes, he was,--and got blamed for it, too. I don't blame him, myself; he
was on deck the next minute; and if he had been there befor