was the
practice it might give to these lads with the oars.

"I don't know what Hazard and Green are about"--called out Roswell
Gardiner to his owner, the first being on the quarter-deck of the Sea
Lion, and the last on the wharf, while Watson was busy in the
main-rigging; "they've been long enough on the main to ship a dozen crews
for a craft of this size, and we are still short two hands, even if this
man sign the papers, which he has not yet done. By the way, Watson, it's
time we saw your hand-writing."

"I'm a poor scholar, captain Gar'ner," returned the cunning mariner, "and
it takes time for me to make out even so small a matter as my name."

"Ay, ay; you are a prudent fellow, and I like you all the better for it.
But you have had leisure, and a plenty of it too, to make up your mind.
You must know the schooner from her keel up by this time, and ought to be
able to say now that you are willing to take luck's chances in her."

"Ay, ay, sir; that's all true enough, so far as the craft is concerned. If
this was a West India v'y'ge, I wouldn't stand a minute about signing the
articles; nor should I make much question if the craft was large enough
for a common whalin' v'y'ge; but, sealin' is a different business, and one
onprofitable hand may make many an onprofitable lay."

"All this is true enough; but we do not intend to take any unprofitable
hands, or to have any unprofitable lays, You know me--"

"Oh! if all was like _you_, captain Gar'ner, I wouldn't stand even to wipe
the pen. _Your_ repitation was made in the southward, and no man can
dispute your skill."

"Well, both mates are old hands at the business, and we intend that all
the 'ables' shall be as good men as you are yourself."

"It _needs_ good men, sir, to be operatin' among some of them
sea-elephants! Sea-dogs; for sea-dogs is my sayin'. They tell of seals
getting scurce; but I say, it's all in knowin' the business--'There's
young captain Gar'ner,' says I, 'that's fittin' out a schooner for some
onknown part of the world,' says I, 'maybe for the South Pole,
for-ti-know, or for some sich out-of-the-way hole; now he'll come back
_full_, or I'm no judge o' the business,' says I."

"Well, if this is your way of thinking, you have only to clap your name to
the articles, and take your lay."

"Ay, ay, sir; when I've seed my shipmates. There isn't the business under
the sun that so much needs that every man should be true, as the
sea-elephant trade. S