dangers which nearly ended in disaster, he has never again been shipwrecked.  Hence his faith is unbroken in the protecting virtue of this mode of wearing that article of dress, and so is his reverent belief in black cats as charms against evil fortune.  I have never known a person with a larger sense of genuine humour than this man possessed, and yet one could never appear to slight his peculiar superstitions without producing a paroxysm of fury in him.  He would watch for the appearance of a new moon with touching anxiety, and although his finances were very frequently in a precarious condition, he never allowed himself to be without the proverbial penny to turn over under the new moon as a panacea against hidden pecuniary ills!  If, in sailor parlance, a star “dogged the moon,” that was to him a disturbing omen, and great caution had to be observed that no violation of nautical ethics took place during the transit.  It was never regarded as a transit, but as a “sign” from which evil might be evolved.

Amidst all this singular piety in externals (for it was really a species of piety), this typical sailor never gave up his belief in the efficacy of strong language, which, among the worst of his class, was frequently indescribable; and the more eloquent he was in the utterance of oaths the larger became his conviction that he possessed a gift not to be acquired by mere tuition.  Many years ago, when I was a very small apprentice boy aboard a brig we had a steward who was also a sailor of no common ability.  His career had been a long one of varied villainy, he impersonating alternately a parson and a rich shipowner.  In the latter role he succeeded in getting large advances of money from unsuspecting store, sail, and rope dealers—­taking advantage of a trade-custom which prevails in every port, in return for which he gave orders, which caused the favoured firms to be looked upon with envy.  They were requested to have these supplies put aboard four days after the order was given; and the penalty for not being able to do so was to be the loss of a very valuable connection.  There was much condescension on the part of the bounteous customer, who “would call again in two days,” and much thanking and bowing and shaking of hands on the part of the recipients when the time came to say “Good-day.”  The stores were duly sent to the docks where the vessels were lying, but the real owners did not recognise the person who had given the order as having any connection with them, whereupon an unhappy dawn broke over the minds of the unsuspecting victims.  Many months elapsed before the gentleman in question was apprehended and confronted by the tradesmen to whom he owed a period of blissful dissipation.  Needless to say the meeting was not so cordial as the parting, though a lack of cordiality could not be charged against the improvised shipowner.  Indeed, to the great discomfort of his former friends, as soon as an opportunity was given him, from his position in the prisoners’