gingham, bottle of cambric tea,
And a penny wrapped up in my hankerchee,

For I wanted to be free,
So I ran away to sea."

Mr. Mizzen stopped, and looked towards the stern of the ship. "I
thought," said he, "I kind of noticed something queer about the stern
rail; looked as if it was lower. But I guess I'm mistaken."

Everyone looked, but saw nothing amiss. The Cabin-boy tittered into
Freddie's ear.

"Would you like to hear the second verse?" said the Able Seaman.

"Yes, yes! Go on!" said several voices at once.

"Here goes, then," said Mr. Mizzen, thrumming on the guitar. "After I
ran away to sea, I had a good many adventures, and some of 'em--anyway--

"When I was young I followed the Equator
From Pole to Pole in the ship Perambulator,
A four-wheeled schooner, a smoky old freighter,
Loaded with sulphur for an old dead crater
In the Andes Mountains, and a night or two later
With a three-knot gale blowing loud and rude
As the dark grows darker and the gale increases
Of a sudden we strike and we goes all to pieces
On the forty-seventh parallel of latitude.
And then and there we formed a committee
And went in a body up to London City
And walked up the steps and pulled the little bell,
And spoke out bold to the Lords of Creation
Where they sat in their wigs making rules of navigation,
And explained to 'em the dangers of the Deadly Parallel.
'Take 'em down and pull 'em in,'
That's the way we did begin:
''Tisn't leaks nor 'tisn't whiskey
Makes the sailor's life so risky,
It's the parallel as lies acrost our track.
It's the Deadly Parallel, lying there so long and black,
Is the subject of our moderate petition;
'Tisn't much that we are wishin',
But we humbly beg permission
To implore,--
Coil 'em up, we implore, where they won't be in the way,
Out of sight, safe ashore, we humbly pray;
For there's many a tidy bark
Strikes against 'em in the dark
And is never never heard of any more.
So we'll thank you heartilee
If so very kind you'll be
And remove this awful danger from the sea.'
But we couldn't make 'em do it;
No, they simply wouldn't do it;
And the bailiff shoved us gently from the door.
And we wept uncommon salty,
For their reason did seem