allus up to some mischief."

"Ay, ay, that's a true word," cried another fisherman.

"That's so," growled the sailor, who, as he spoke, kept on brushing
Aleck down and using his forearm as a brush to remove the dust and
_debris_ from the champion's jacket.

"Pity he didn't leather another couple of 'em," cried the big fisherman.

"Ay," growled the sailor. "I don't want to say anything unneighbourly,
but it seems a pity that some on 'em don't get swep' up by the next
press-gang as lands. A few years aboard a man-o'-war'd be the best
physic for some o' them. Look at all this here rubbidge about! I see
'em. Got it ready to fling at the young gent. I know their games."

"Nay, nay," said the big fisherman, as a low, angry murmur arose, and
ignoring the allusion to the fish _debris_ lying about, "we don't want
no press-gangs meddling here."

"Yes, you do," said the sailor, angrily, as he applied a blue cotton
neckerchief he had snatched off and shaken out, alternately to a cut on
Aleck's forehead and to his swollen nose, which was bleeding freely.
"Nice game this, arn't it? I know what I'm saying. I was pressed
myself when I was twenty, and sarved seven year afore I come home with a
pension. It made a man o' me, and never did me no harm."

There was a hoarse roar of laughter at this, several of the fishermen
stamping about in their mirth, making the sailor cease his ministrations
and stand staring, and beginning to mop his hot forehead with the
neckerchief.

"What are yer grinning at?" he said, angrily, with the result that the
laughter grew louder.

"Have I smudged my face with this here hankychy, Master Aleck?" said the
sailor, turning to the boy, who could not now refrain from smiling in
turn.

But Aleck was saved the necessity of replying to the question by the big
fisherman, who spoke out in a grimly good-humoured way, as he cast his
eyes up and down the dwarfed man-o'-war's man:

"Lookye here, Tom, mate," he said, good-humouredly, "I don't know so
much about never doing you no harm, old chap."

"What d'yer mean?" growled the sailor.

"What about yer legs, mate?" cried another of the men.

The sailor stared round at the group, and then a change came over him,
and he bent down and gave his hip a sounding slap.

"I'm blest!" he cried, with the angry looks giving place to a broad
smile. "I'm blest! I never thought about my legs!"

There was another roar of laughter now, in which Tom Bodger joi