de's train," said the mate, spluttering at the picture he had
conjured up.

They all laughed--all except Henry, who, having come down with some hot
water from the galley, surveyed the ribald scene with a scarcely
concealed sneer.

Half an hour later the skipper and mate went ashore to transact a little
business, leaving the old man smoking peacefully in the cabin. The crew,
having adjusted their differences, had already gone ashore to treat each
other to beer, leaving Henry in sole charge.

"You'll stay by the ship, boy," said the skipper, looking down on him
from the quay.

"Ay, ay, sir," said Henry sulkily.

The two men walked along the quay and into the High Street, the skipper
shrugging his shoulders good-naturedly as he caught, through a half-open
door, a glimpse of his crew settling down to business. It was an example
that in the circumstances seemed to be worth following, and at the next
public-house the mate, sacrificing his inclinations to the occasion,
drank port wine instead of his favorite whisky. For the same reason he
put his pipe back in his pocket and accepted a cigar, and then followed
his superior into the street.

"Where's a likely tailor's?" asked the skipper, looking round.

"What for?" asked the mate.

"I'm going to get some things for Cap'n Gething," said the other. "He's
hardly the figure to meet his family as he is."

"Why didn't you bring him with us?" asked the mate. "How about a fit?"

"He wouldn't hear of it," said the skipper, pausing in deep
contemplation of three wax boys in a tailor's window. "He's an
independent sort of man; but if I buy the clothes and take 'em aboard he
can hardly refuse to wear 'em."

He led the way into the shop and asked to see some serge suits. At the
mate's instigation he asked to see some more. At the mate's further
instigation he asked whether that was all they had got, and being told
that it was, looked at them all over again. It is ever a difficult thing
to fit an absent man, but he and the mate tried on every jacket in the
hope of finding a golden mea