se black if you don't shut up," said Jack, drawing the
edge of a black square with intense caution, in order to avoid invading
the domain of a white one.

"Ah! you reminds me of the owld proverb that says somethin' about asses
gittin impudent an' becomin' free with their heels when lions grow
sick."

"Well, Jerry," retorted Jack, with a smile, as he leaned back and
regarded his work with his head very much on one side, and his eyes
partially closed, after the manner of knights of the brush, "I'm not
offended, because I'm just as much of an ass as you are of a lion."

"I say, mates," remarked Dick Moy, pausing in his work, and wiping his
brow, "are 'ee aweer that the cap'n has ordered us to be ready to start
wi' the first o' the tide at half after five to-morrow?"

"I knows it," replied Jack Shales, laying down the black brush and
taking up the white one.

"I knows it too," said Jerry MacGowl, "but it don't make no manner of
odds to me, 'cause I means to stop ashore and enjoy meself. I mean to
amoose meself with the trial o' that black thief Morley Jones."

Dick Moy resumed his work with a grunt, and said that Jerry was a lucky
fellow to be so long on sick-leave, and Jack said he wished he had been
called up as a witness in Jones's case, for he would have cut a better
figure than Jim Welton did.

"Ay, boy," said Dick Moy, "but there wos a reason for that. You know
the poor feller is in love wi' Jones's daughter, an' he didn't like for
to help to convict his own father-in-law _to be_, d'ye see? That's
where it is. The boy Billy Towler was a'most as bad. He's got a
weakness for the gal too, an' no wonder, for she's bin as good as a
mother to 'im. They say that Billy nigh broke the hearts o' the
lawyers, he wos so stoopid at sometimes, an' so oncommon cute at others.
But it warn't o' no use. Jim's father was strong in his evidence agin
him, an' that Mr Larks, as comed aboard of the Gull, you remember, he
had been watching an' ferreting about the matter to that extent that he
turned Jones's former life inside out. It seems he's bin up to dodges
o' that kind for a long time past."

"No! has he?" said Jack Shales.

"Arrah, didn't ye read of it?" exclaimed Jerry MacGowl.

"No," replied Jack drily; "not bein' on the sick-list I han't got time
to read the papers, d'ye see?"

"Well," resumed Dick Moy, "it seems he has more than once set fire to
his premises in Gravesend, and got the insurance money. Hows'ever