es the skipper, peering over the
side, and speaking as though he knew all about sea-sarpints and their
ways.

"'S'pose it puts its 'ead over the side and takes one o' the men,' ses
the mate.

"'Let me know at once,' ses the skipper firmly; an' he went below agin
and left us.

"Well, I was jolly glad when eight bells struck, an' I went below; an'
if ever I hoped anything I hoped that when I go up that ugly brute would
have gone, but, instead o' that, when I went on deck it was playing
alongside like a kitten a'most, an' one o' the chaps told me as the
skipper had been feeding it agin.

"'It's a wonderful animal,' ses the skipper, 'an' there's none of you
now but has seen the sea-sarpint; but I forbid any man here to say a
word about it when we get ashore.'

"'Why not, sir?' ses the second mate.

"'Becos you wouldn't be believed,' said the skipper sternly. 'You might
all go ashore and kiss the Book an' make affidavits an' not a soul 'ud
believe you. The comic papers 'ud make fun of it, and the respectable
papers 'ud say it was seaweed or gulls.'

"Why not take it to New York with us?' ses the fust mate suddenly.

"'What?' ses the skipper.

"'Feed it every day,' ses the mate, getting excited, 'and bait a couple
of shark hooks and keep 'em ready, together with some wire rope. Git 'im
to foller us as far as he will, and then hook him. We might git him in
alive and show him at a sovereign a head. Anyway, we can take in his
carcase if we manage it properly.'

"'By Jove! if we only could,' ses the skipper, getting excited too.

"'We can try,' ses the mate. 'Why, we could have noosed it this mornin'
if we had liked; and if it breaks the lines we must blow its head to
pieces with the gun.'

"It seemed a most eggstraordinary thing to try and catch it that way;
but the beast was so tame, and stuck so close to us, that it wasn't
quite so ridikilous as it seemed at fust.

"Arter a couple o' days nobody minded the animal a bit, for it was about
the most nervous thing of its size you ever saw. It hadn't got the soul
of a mouse; and one day when the second mate, just for a lark, took the
line of the foghorn in his hand and tooted it a bit, it flung up its
'ead in a scared sort o' way, and, after backing a bit, turned clean
round and bolted.

"I thought the skipper 'ud have gone mad. He chucked over loaves o'
bread, bits o' beef and pork, an' scores o' biskits, and by-and-bye,
when the brute plucked up heart an' came a