“Halloo there! Are y’aslape— Oh, there y’are! Here’s a spalpeen with a dhirty face, an’s wishful to wash it; may I take a bailin’ tin of— Oh, thank your ’arner, thank your ’arner—good day to you, and my respects.” 

 “What did the shark say, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline. 

 “He said: ‘Take a bar’l full, an’ welcome, Mister Button; an’ it’s wishful I am I had a drop of the crathur to offer you this fine marnin’.’ Thin he popped his head under his fin and went aslape agin; leastwise, I heard him snore.” 

 Emmeline nearly always “Mr Buttoned” her friend; sometimes she called him “Mr Paddy.” As for Dick, it was always “Paddy,” pure and simple. Children have etiquettes of their own. 

 It must often strike landsmen and landswomen that the most terrible experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence of privacy. It seems an outrage on decency on the part of Providence to herd people together so. But, whoever has gone through the experience will bear me out that in great moments of life like this the human mind enlarges, and things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out there, face to face with eternity. 

 If so with grown-up people, how much more so with this old shell-back and his two charges? 

 And indeed Mr Button was a person who called a spade a spade, had no more conventions than a walrus, and looked after his two charges just as a nursemaid might look after her charges, or a walrus after its young. 

 There was a large bag of biscuits in the boat, and some tinned stuff—mostly sardines. 

 I have known a sailor to open a box of sardines with a tin-tack. He was in prison, the sardines had been smuggled into him, and he had no can-opener. Only his genius and a tin-tack. 

 Paddy had a jack-knife, however, and in a marvellously short time a box of sardines was opened, and placed on the stern-sheets beside some biscuits. 

 These, with some water and Emmeline’s Tangerine orange, which she produced and added to the common store, formed the feast, and they fell to. 

 When they had finished, the remains were put carefully away, and they proceeded to step the tiny mast. 

 The sailor, when the mast was in its place, stood for a moment resting his hand on it, and gazing 

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