body.

"'How is Bill?' ses Joe's voice again.

"'Look for yourself,' ses Tom.

"Joe sat up in 'is bunk then and looked out, and he no sooner saw Bill's
face than he gave a loud cry and fell back agin, and, as true as I'm
sitting here, fainted clean away. We was struck all of a 'eap, and then
Bill picked up the bucket and threw some water over 'im, and by and by
he comes round agin and in a dazed sort o' way puts his arm round Bill's
neck and begins to cry.

"'_Mighty Moses!_' ses Dodgy Pete, jumping up, 'it's a woman!'

"'It's my _wife!_' ses Bill.

"We understood it all then, leastways the married ones among us did.
She'd shipped aboard partly to be with Bill and partly to keep an eye
on 'im, and Tom Baker's mistake about a prizefighter had just suited
her book better than anything. How Bill was to get 'er home 'e couldn't
think, but it 'appened the second officer had been peeping down the
fo'c's'le, waiting for ever so long for a suitable opportunity to stop
the fight, and the old man was so tickled about the way we'd all been
done 'e gave 'er a passage back as stewardess to look arter the ship's
cat."

THE RESURRECTION OF MR. WIGGETT

Mr. Sol Ketchmaid, landlord of the Ship, sat in his snug bar, rising
occasionally from his seat by the taps to minister to the wants of the
customers who shared this pleasant retreat with him.

Forty years at sea before the mast had made Mr. Ketchmaid an authority
on affairs maritime; five years in command of the Ship Inn, with the
nearest other licensed house five miles off, had made him an autocrat.

From his cushioned Windsor-chair he listened pompously to the
conversation. Sometimes he joined in and took sides, and on these
occasions it was a foregone conclusion that the side he espoused would
win. No matter how reasonable the opponent's argument or how gross his
personalities, Mr. Ketchmaid, in his capacity of host, had one unfailing
rejoinder--the man was drunk. When Mr. Ketchmaid had pronounced
that opinion the argument was at an end. A nervousness about his
license--conspicuous at other times by its absence--would suddenly
possess him, and, opening the little wicket which gave admission to the
bar, he would order the offender in scathing terms to withdraw.

Twice recently had he found occasion to warn Mr. Ned Clark, the village
shoemaker, the strength of whose head had been a boast in the village
for many years. On the third occasion the indignant shoemaker wa