The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100.,
Jan. 24, 1891., by Various

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Title: Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891.

Author: Various

Release Date: July 10, 2004 [EBook #12872]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 100.

January 24, 1891.

MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS.

NO. XII.--THE MATE OF THE MARLINSPIKE.

(_BY SHARK MUSSELL; AUTHOR OF "ERECT WITH A STOVE IN HER," "MY GYP
MADE TO WHEEZE," "THE ROMANCE OF A PENNY PARLOUR," "A HOOK FOR THE
BANNOCK," "FOUND THE GAL ON FIRE," "THE MYSTERY OF THE LOTION JAR,"
"THE JOKES O' LEAD," &C., &C., &C._)

["Here you are, my hearty," writes the Author, "this is a
regular briny ocean story, all storms and thunderclaps and
sails and rigging and soaring masts and bellying sails. How
about 'avast heaving' and 'shiver my timbers,' and 'son of a
sea-cook,' and all that? No, thank you; that kind of thing's
played out. MARRYAT was all very well _in his day_, but that
day's gone. The public requires stories about merchant ships,
and, by Neptune, the public shall have them, with all kinds
of hairy villains and tempest-tossed wrecks and human interest
and no end of humour, likewise word-pictures of ships and
storms. That's me. So clear the decks, and here goes."]

CHAPTER I.

We were in mid-ocean. Over the vast expanses of the oily sea no ripple
was to be seen although Captain BABBIJAM kept his binoculars levelled
at the silent horizon for three-quarters of an hour by the saloon
clock. Far away in the murky distance of the mysterious empyrean, a
single star flashed with a weird brilliance down upon the death-like
stillness of the immemorial ocean. Yet the good old _Marlinspike_
was rolling from side to side and rising and falling as if the liquid
expanse were stirred by the rush of a tempest instead of lying as
motionless as a country congregation during the rector's sermon.
Suddenly Captain BABBIJAM closed his b