ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound,

as of his imaginative affections in his sombre cell--

A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

Let but a sailor apply to him at the wrong hour--or even the right
hour--for tobacco, and his indisposition was gone in a second; his
tongue was unchained. The busy mockers grinned. "He'd tell Davy Jones
he'd been to sea before him."

In the Argentine ports he was in excellent voice. Did a native shoemaker
come aboard with his repair outfit, or a seller of fruit with his
panniers, and did any one propose to deal with these "Dagoes," out
skipped our old friend, bellowing: "Too much, man; what," (_crescendo_)
"d'ye think we pick up money in the streets?--I wouldn't have your blasted
country for all the blasted money there is in it." The charges, I am
bound to add, fell down quickly, while the old watchman standing by
observed with a respectful grin, "You a good man!"

The advance of age was a sore point with Mouldytop. Consequently, it was
one that was brought to his notice as often as it could be effective.
One evening, some one told him he was too old to play football. "Too
old, mister?" he bawled; "Too old!--why, give me that blasted ball,"
and he stood there in a prodigious rage, his eyes flashing, his fists
knotting. "Too old!"--His calenture ceased suddenly; there was a tug on
his fishing line. Up came a yellow catfish. Never have I perceived a
livelier disgust than the look showed which he cast upon this victim. It
seemed to blame the catfish personally for not being a rock salmon.

So Mouldytop regarded animated nature; which regarded him as a man whose
duties implied opportunities. "I'm a poor man, mister."--"The old son of
a gun says he's a poor man. You old liar, you've got streets of houses,
you know you have."

Some one who knew him at home was strongly of opinion that he was less
terrible by his own fireside: that there was a fellow creature under whose
guidance he roared like any sucking dove. It might be. Indeed, it was
my impression that it could hardly be otherwise. I thought I noticed a
certain caution even in his attitude to the large-bosomed laundrywoman
who took the ship's orders at Buenos Aires; and his comment on _her_
charges had been of the weakest.

XXVI

We crossed the line at six in the mor