egained the deck, and proceeded
to dry his hairy frame on an ancient flannel shirt. In the midst of this
occupation, temporarily forgetful of his superior officer's prejudices,
he broke into song.

Thirty seconds after he had let go the first howl, the Skipper's head
was thrust up the companion-way.

"Wodjer want to make all that row about? Anything disagreed with yer? If
so, why don't yer take something for it?"

"It's a funny thing yer carn't let a man alone, when all 'e's a doin' is
making a bit of 'armony on board," replied the mate, pausing in the act
of drying his shock head.

"'Armony be d--driven overboard!" cried Mr. Pigg, wrathfully. "Now, look
'ere, Bob Topper, I ain't a onreasonable man in my likes and dislikes,
but it ain't fair to sing at a feller creature with the voice nature
fitted you out with! I never done you no 'arm."

Next day the _Saucy Sally_ shipped some shingle ballast, got under weigh
on the first of the ebb tide, and safely threading her way past the
shallows and through the narrow channels of the harbor, emerged into the
open sea, and turned her bluff-bowed stem eastwards.

The following afternoon, as Bob Topper took his trick at the wheel, he
ruminated on the mutability of human affairs in general, and the
"contraryness" of skippers in particular.

"Won't 'ave no music, won't he? Well, I reckon it's like religion when
the missionaries is a shovin' of it into the African niggers--they just
jolly well got to 'ave it! An' so it'll be with the ole man. I'll jest
fix up a scheme as'll do 'im a treat."

He smiled broadly; and when Bob Topper smiled, the corners of his mouth
seemed to almost meet at the back of his head.

And as soon as the _Saucy Sally_ had pitched and tossed her way up
channel--for she was light as a cork in ballast--and dropped anchor a
little way off Gravesend, Bob Topper sculled himself ashore. Twenty
minutes after stepping out of the boat, he was seated in the back-parlor
of a friend, a musical-instrument maker.

When Mr. Topper went aboard again, he carried under his arm a large
brown paper package, which he smuggled below, without encountering the
Skipper, who was in his cabin at the time, communing with a bill of
lading and a glass of Hollands neat. And, soon after the mate had come
aboard, "the Cap'n" went ashore.

And then Mr. Topper laid himself out for some tranquil enjoyment, on
quite an unusual scale. He unfastened the package, produced a
gramophone, b