'; which he
weren't a patch on alongside av you, sorr, as ivery hand aboard knows."

"Get out with your blarney," said Mr Mackay good-humouredly, urging the
crew on to fresh exertions by way of changing the topic. "If we stop
jawing here long we'll never sail from Shanghai before next year. Put
your hearts in it, men, and let us get all stowed and be done with it."

"Look aloive," yelled the boatswain, following suit; "an' hurry up wid
thim chistesses--one'd think ye wor goin' to make the job last a month
av Sundays, sore!"

They "hurried up" with a vengeance; so that, before the week was out,
the tea was all stowed and the hatches battened down, with the ship
quite ready to sail as soon as Captain Gillespie got all his permits and
papers from the shore--of which latter, by the way, I may confess, Tom
Jerrold and I got tired at last.

I had received no less than three letters from home, all in a batch,
when we got to Shanghai, one also coming after we arrived, telling me
about father and them all; and it seemed, as I read of their doings at
the vicarage and what went on at Westham, as if it had been years since
I left England, instead of only six months or so passing by; the change
of life and all that had happened making me feel ever so much older.

However, reading these dear home letters made me long all the more to
get back and see them again; and, in anticipation of this, you may be
certain I did not forget to make a good collection of nice things for
mother and my sister Nellie, as well as some "curios" for father, such
as he had promised in my name when the letter came which made my mother
grieve so, telling that all the arrangements had been completed for my
going to sea,--do you recollect?

Yes; and besides the curios I myself bought ashore, I had one given me,
at the very last moment before we left the Yang-tse-kiang, by Ching
Wang, who, much to the surprise of all, said he wasn't going back in the
Silver Queen--not, at all events, this voyage, he made the captain
understand, being desirous of remaining at Shanghai until the next year.

"Me likee lilly gal, she likee me," he explained with his bland vacuous
smile and his little beady eyes twinkling. "Me wifoo get chop chop.
Two men not stop one placee--no go ship and 'top shore too."

"You rascal!" shouted "Old Jock" in a rage, "you served me just the same
trick the voyage before last. You'd better come with us now, for I'm
hanged if I give you the