ribbon on the back of his head, and a green patch over his right eye.

CHAPTER VI

LEMUEL MIZZEN, A.B.

Freddie looked at the Sailorman, and the Sailorman straightened up and
touched his cap. His face was brown as weathered oak, and creased like
bark; his one eye was black and glittering; the hand which he raised to
his cap was of the shape and nearly the size of a ham; and the chest and
throat which emerged from his wide-open shirt-collar was as brown as his
face, and big with muscles. There was a delicious odour of tar about
him; you positively could not look at him without hearing wind whistling
through ropes. He hitched up his trousers with his other hand and said:

"Ay, ay, skipper! Here I be as big as life, all ready fer orders!"

As Freddie gazed at him, the Little Boy slowly collected his wits, and a
light began to dawn upon him.

"Have you been to China?" said he.

"Right-o!" cried the Sailorman. "To China I have been----" in a queer
sing-song, as if he might have been marching in time to it round a
capstan, hauling in an anchor: "To China I have been, and a many ports
I've seen, near and far; I can sail before the mast or behind it just as
fast, I'm a tar, I'm a tar, I'm a tar!"

Freddie continued to stare at him with increasing astonishment.

"Are you a sailor, sir?" said he.

"Wot, me? I'm Lemuel Mizzen, A.B., that's me, and I sail the deep blue
sea from Maine to Afrikee, and round again on an even keel to Cochin
China for cochineal, and back to Chili for Chili sauce, and home again
to Banbury Cross--that's me! Lemuel Mizzen, able seaman! Fed on hard
tack or soft tack, or a starboard tack or a port tack, it's all the same
to me! Now then, skipper, you piped me up, wot's the orders?"

"Please, sir," said Freddie, "would you mind telling me what it is you
would like to have?"

"_Me?_ Douse my binnacle light, wot I want is a chew o' terbacker; but
the question before the chart-house is, wot do _you_ want, skipper?"

"I don't want anything," said Freddie.

"Wot? You piped me up, didn't you? Piped me up with a pipe?"

"No, sir," said Freddie.

"Sorry to entertain a different opinion from the skipper! Didn't you
smoke the Chinaman's 'baccy, _in_ a pipe?"

"Yes, sir," said Freddie, hanging his head.

"Then you did pipe me up with a pipe, and I hope I knows better than to
come aft without bein' piped. Didn't you know I've got to come when you
smoke the pipe with the Chinaman's 'baccy in