ships.

Then there was Mac, the chief, a stunted, sandy little man, covered
with freckles, and tattooed with various marine designs. He loved
his engine better than himself, and in his sorrow at its break-up,
he was driven to the bottle, and when last seen--after asking "ever'
one" to take a drink--was wandering off, his arms around two Filipino
sailors. Coming to life a few days later, "Mac ain't sayin' much,"
he said, "but Mac, 'e knows." Yielding to our persuasion, he wrote
down a song "what 'e 'ad learned once at a sailors' boardin' 'ouse
in Frisco." It was called "The Lodger," and he rendered it thus,
in a deep-sea voice:

"The other night I chanced to meet a charmer of a girl,
An', nothin' else to do, I saw 'er 'ome;
We 'ad a little bottle of the very finest brand,
An' drank each other's 'ealth in crystal foam.
I lent the dear a sover'ign; she thanked me for the same
An' laid 'er golden 'ead upon me breast;
But soon I finds myself thrown out the passage like shot,--
A six-foot man confronts me, an' 'e says:

Chorus--

I'm sorry to disturb you, but the lodger 'as come," etc.

The feature of the song, however, was Mac's leer, which, in a public
hall, would have brought down the house, and which I feel unable
to describe.

The mate, aroused by the example of the chief, rendered a "Tops'l
halliard shanty," "Blow, Bullies, Blow." It was almost as though a
character had stepped from _Pinafore_, when the athletic, gallant
little mate, giving a hitch to his trousers, thus began: "Strike up
a light there, Bullies; who's the last man sober?"

Song.

"O, a Yankee ship came down the river--
Blow, Bullies, blow!
Her sails were silk and her yards were silver--
Blow, my Bully boys, blow!
Now, who do you think was the cap'n of 'er?
Blow, Bullies, blow!
Old Black Ben, the down-east bucko--
Blow, my Bully boys, How!"

"'Ere is a shanty what the packeteers sings when, with 'full an'
plenty,' we are 'omeward bound. It is a 'windlass shanty,' an' we
sings it to the music of the winch. The order comes 'hup anchors,'
and the A one packeteer starts hup:

"'We're hom'ard bound; we're bound away;
Good-bye, fare y' well.
We're home'ard bound; we leave to-day;
Hooray, my boys! we're home'ard bound.
We're home'ard bound from Liverpool town