em.

However, they were fast friends, and, as Tom didn't complain, nobody
else has any right to find fault.

"A grunt, I suppose," replied Charley, in answer to Tom's conundrum.
"At least, from a Welsh pig, like Tompkins. An Irish one, bedad! would
have better manners."

"Bravo, Charley!" exclaimed Tom, bursting out into a laugh in which his
companion as heartily joined. "You stick to your country, at all
events, which is more than can be said for our leek-eating friend. He
always wishes to deny that he belongs to the land of the Cymri and hails
from Swansea, as he does. The sneak! I'm sure a decent Welshman would
be ashamed to own him. But, don't let us worry ourselves any longer
about Tompkins; it's bad enough to have him with us on board, without
lugging him ashore, too; hang him!"

"Ay, ay, so say I," sang out Charley, in the best accord.

And then, after a few more vigorous strokes from the sculls, propelled
by Tom's muscular arms, the bow of the dinghy stranded on the sandy
shore, and the two boys landed in the highest glee, without a trace of
the ill-humour and despondency in which they had been apparently plunged
not an hour or so before.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

THE COFFEE-SHOP IN BEYROUT.

Pushing past the crowds of busy and idle people, Greeks, Turks,
Armenians, Maronites, Arabs, Frenchmen, and a few English, like
themselves, who thronged the narrow streets, which were lined on either
side with stores built in the American fashion for the disposal of
European goods; narrow Eastern shops, and bazaars and caravanserais,
hung with carpets, and displaying grapes and figs, and all sorts of
fruit in true Oriental style; they made their way towards a Turkish
coffee-house that was situated not far from the waterside, and much
patronised by those who, like themselves, had to do with ships and
seafaring concerns--although, they did not arrive very quickly at their
destination, for the time for the noonday halt having passed by, the
usual caravans from Damascus and the interior were coming in, long
trains of camels, asses, and mules, laden with coffee, raw silk,
rhubarb, untanned leather, figs, aromatic gums, and all the varied
merchandise that comes through Arabia and Persia to the ports of the
Levant; and, consequently, the main thoroughfares were so blocked with
these commercial pilgrims from the desert, that it was as much as Tom
and Charley could do to get along.

They did it at length, howev