Tom laughed as he thought of Mrs. Aubrey, and flung his clay over the side.  “What ship is this, Bannister?”

“The J.W.  Seaver, of ’Frisco.  We’re from the Gilbert Islands with a cargo of copra.”

“Who is your supercargo?”

“Haven’t got one.  Can’t get one here, either.  Say, Tom, you’re the man.  The captain will jump at getting you!  Since he married he considers his life too valuable to be trusted among natives, and funks at going ashore and doing supercargo’s work.  Now you come below, and I’ll rake out enough money to get you a high-class suit of store clothes and shiny boots.  Then you come back to dinner.  I’ll talk to him between then and now.  He knows a lot about you.  I’ll tell him that since you left the Palestine you’ve been touring your native country to ’expand your mind.’ She’s Boston, as ugly as a brown stone jug, and highly intellectual. He’s all right, and as good a sailor-man as ever trod a deck, but she’s boss, runs the ship, and looks after the crew’s morals.  Thet’s why we’re short-handed.  But she’ll take to you like lightning—­when she hears that you’ve been ‘expanding your mind.’  Buy a second-hand copy of Longfellow’s, poems, and tell her that it has been your constant companion in all your wanderings among vicious cannibals, and she’ll just decorate your cabin like a prima-donna’s boudoir, darn your socks, and make you read some of her own poetry.”

That afternoon, Mr. Thomas Denison, clean-shirted and looking eminently respectable and prosperous, and feeling once more a man after the degrading duck episode in North Queensland, was strolling about George Street with Bannister, and at peace with the world and himself.  For the skipper’s wife had been impressed with his intellectuality and modest demeanour, and was already at work decorating his cabin—­as Bannister had prophesied.

Jack Shark’s Pilot

Early one morning as we in the Palestine, South Sea trading schooner, were sailing slowly between Fotuna and Alofa—­two islands lying to the northward of Fiji—­one of the native hands came aft and reported two large sharks alongside.  The mate at once dived below for his shark hook, while I tried to find a suitable bit of beef in the harness cask.  Just as the mate appeared carrying the heavy hook and chain, our skipper, who was lying on the skylight smoking his pipe, although half asleep, inquired if there were “any pilot fish with the brutes.”

“Yes, sir,” said a sailor who was standing in the waist, looking over the side, “there’s quite a lot of ’em.  I’ve never seen so many at one time before.  There’s nigh on a dozen.”

The captain was on his feet in an instant.  “Don’t lower that hook of yours just yet, Porter,” he said to the mate.  “I’m going to get those pilot fish first.  Tom, bring me up my small fishing line.”

“They won’t take a hook, will they?” I inquired.