those who kiss it with the "gift of the gab;" and
Charley must have "osculated it," as a Yankee would say, to some
purpose.

"Be jabers, thin, ye spalpeen," laughed Tom--who had got out of his
grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as
light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the
confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed
his spirits--"let us look smart, and be off. Here's that fellow
Tompkins just coming up the side, and I don't want any more of his
company than I can help! Tell him we're going by the captain's
permission, Charley. I don't want to say a word to him after that row
this morning. You are still on speaking terms with him, and I'm not.
And while you are settling matters with the old sneak, I'll get the
dinghy ready, and fetch up the bottle of brandy I promised that jolly
old Turk at the coffee-shop."

"You'd better water it a bit, Tom," said Charley, as the other was
diving down the companion-stairs. "It's awfully strong; and you know
Mohammedans are not accustomed to it."

"Not a drop of it, my boy," replied he, disappearing for a moment from
view, and his voice receding in the distance. "I promised the old
infidel that he should have the real stuff, and I'll let him see that a
giaour can keep his word."

In a second or two he came up again, the bottle, however, concealed in
the pocket of his reefer of light blue serge. And hauling in the
painter of the boat, which was floating astern, while Charley was still
confabulating with the second officer, who had come on board in the
meantime, he sat himself down in her, and waited patiently till his chum
had done with the obnoxious Mr Tompkins, who seemed to have a good deal
to say, and that of a not very pleasant character. "Bother the chap!"
said Charley, when he was at length released, and, shinning down a rope,
sat down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy, as Tom Aldridge took up the
sculls and shoved off from the ship. "He's got as much to say as Noah's
great-grandmother. And the gist of it all, fault-finding, of course."

"What can you expect from a pig, eh?" said Tom, philosophically, when
the boat was well clear of the _Muscadine_, setting to work leisurely
and pulling to shore, while Charley reclined at his ease on the cushions
which he had taken the trouble to fix up for himself, and--did nothing,
as usual.

It was the general sort of "division of labour" amongst th