' again like a bad shillin'. How goes life with
'ee, Haco? you don't seem to have multiplied the wrinkles since I last
saw ye."

"Thank 'ee, I'm pretty comf'rable. This is my darter Susan," said Haco,
observing that his friend glanced inquiringly at his fair
companion--"The world always uses me much the same. I find it a
roughish customer, but it finds me a jolly one, an' not easily put out.
When did I see ye last? Let me see,--two years come Christmas. Why,
I've been wrecked three times since then, run down twice, an' drownded
at least half-a-dozen times; but by good luck they always manages to
bring me round--rowsussitate me, as the doctors call it."

"Ay, you've had hard times of it," observed Gaff, finishing his last
morsel of meat, and proceeding to scrape up the remains of gravy and
potato with his knife; "I've bin wrecked myself sin' we last met, but
only once, and that warn't long ago, just the last gale. You coasters
are worse off than we are. Commend me to blue water, and plenty o'
sea-room."

"I believe you, my boy," responded the skipper. "There's nothin' like a
good offing an' a tight ship. We stand but a poor chance as we go
creepin' 'long shore in them rotten tubs, that are well named
`Coal-Coffins.' Why, if it comes on thick squally weather or a gale
when yer dodgin' off an' on, the `Coal-Coffins' go down by dozens.
Mayhap at the first burst o' the gale you're hove on your beam-ends, an'
away go the masts, leavin' ye to drift ashore or sink; or p'raps you're
sharp enough to get in sail, and have all snug, when, just as ye're
weatherin' a headland, away goes the sheet o' the jib, jib's blowed to
ribbons, an' afore ye know where ye are, `breakers on the lee bow!' is
the cry. Another gust, an' the rotten foretops'l's blow'd away,
carryin' the fore-topmast by the board, which, of course, takes the
jib-boom along with it, if it an't gone before. Then it's `stand by to
let go the anchor.' `Let go!' `Ay, ay, sir.' Down it goes, an' the
`Coffin's' brought up sharp; not a moment too soon, mayhap, for ten to
one but you see an' hear the breakers, roarin' like mad, thirty yards or
so astern. It may be good holdin' ground, but what o' that?--the
anchor's an old 'un, or too small; the fluke gives way, and ye're
adrift; or the cable's too small, and can't stand the strain, so you let
go both anchors, an' ye'd let go a dozen more if ye had 'em for dear
life; but it's o' no use. First one an' then th