ling eyes, and kindly chaff often in the goodly-sized
mouth.

"Yes, I've grow'd," retorted Billy, "an' I mean to go on growin' till
I'm big enough to wallop _you_."

"Your cheek has been growin' too, Billy."

"So it has, but nothin' like to your jaw, Joseph."

"What luck?" shouted David as the _Morning Star_ was passing on.

"Fifteen trunks. What have _you_ got?"

The skipper held up his hand to acknowledge the information, and shouted
"nineteen," in reply.

"You seem to have a lot o' friends among the skippers, Billy," said
Gunter, with a sneer, for he was fond of teasing the boy, who, to do him
justice, could take chaff well, except when thrown at him by ill-natured
fellows.

"Yes, I have a good lot," retorted Billy. "I met 'em all first in
Yarmouth, when ashore for their week's holiday. There's Joseph White,
master of the mission smack _Cholmondeley_, a splendid feller he is; an'
Bogers of the _Cephas_, an' Snell of the _Ruth_, an' Kiddell of the
_Celerity_, an' Moore of the M.A.A., an' Roberts of the _Magnet_, an'
Goodchild and Brown, an' a lot more, all first-rate fellers, whose
little fingers are worth the whole o' your big body."

"Well, well, what a lucky fellow you are!" said Gunter, with affected
surprise; "an' have you no bad fellers at all among your acquaintance?"

"Oh yes," returned the boy quickly, "I knows a good lot o' them too.
There's Dick the Swab, of the _White Cloud_, who drinks like a fish, an'
Pimply Brock, who could swear you out o' your oiled frock in five
minutes, an' a lot of others more or less wicked, but not one of 'em so
bad as a big ugly feller I knows named John Gunter, who--"

Billy was interrupted by Gunter making a rush at him, but the boy was
too nimble for the man, besides which, Gunter's bruises, to which we
have before referred, were too painful to be trifled with. Soon
afterwards the boat returned for another cargo of trunks, and the crew
of the _Evening Star_ went to work again.

Meanwhile the "power of littles" began to tell on the capacious hold of
the steamer. Let us go on board of her for a few minutes and mount the
bridge. The fleet had now closed in and swarmed around her so thickly,
that it seemed a miracle that the vessels did not come into collision.
From the smacks, boat after boat had run alongside and made fast, until
an absolute flotilla was formed on either side. As each boat came up it
thrust itself into the mass, the man who had pulled the b