“He’s off again!” interjected Yaunie.

“All right, all right!” replied the impatient captain to his voluble compatriot.  “Come to breakfast as quick as you can, there’s a good fellow.”

Farquarson got to the companion-way—­i.e. the entrance to the cabin—­and was about to make some further remarks when the captain of the Claverhouse said to Yaunie, “Let’s go below, for God’s sake!  As long as he sees us he’ll keep on.”

When they got into the cabin, the burly pilot was almost inarticulate.  All he could say was—­

“My goodness, what a tong!  He must be dangerous to his owners.  I have never see such a tong.”

In due course the irrepressible person appeared, and was received with professional cordiality.  He had no sooner taken his seat at the table than he became convulsed with laughter, slapped his hand on the table, and shouted—­

“By Cocker, I’ll never forget it!  The rage of them Russians, and the way they blazed away their shot, and it never going within miles of where you were!  Miles, mind you!”

Yaunie and his friend looked at each other in savage despair, as he persisted in reeling off quantities of disconnected incoherencies.  But relief to his perturbed friends came when the steward placed the breakfast on the table.  He stopped the flow of narration, and exclaimed—­

“Ah! that’s what I like—­dry hash and a bit of ham with an egg or two.  I was just saying to my mate—­who’s as big a born fool as ever drank whisky—­there’s not a better meal made at sea than dry hash.”

By this time his mouth was full, and it was difficult to know what he wished to convey.  His eating was quite as boundless as his talk, though he could not do both at once.  Having finished a good sound plate of hash, he passed his plate along for some ham and eggs, and asked his host if he did not observe what a good appetite he had compared with what he used to have.

“Yes,” said the captain, in blissful ignorance of what he was saying.  “Your appetite was never very good.  I’m glad to see you making such a good breakfast.”

“Well, you know,” replied the guest, “the worst of me is, I appear to be unsociable when I’m eating, as I cannot both eat and talk.”

“Go on eating, then,” said the host.

“Yes, go on eatin’,” responded Yaunie.  “You had a long passage, and must be hungry.”

“Quite right,” replied the guest, with his mouth full.  “I’m glad you don’t think me uncivil, but as I say, I like my breakfast better than most meals, and I can only do one thing at a time.  My wife always says I must have been born either eating or talking.”

He laughed heartily at this little domestic joke, and proceeded with the putting in of the “bunker coals,” as he called it.  The captain of the Claverhouse and the pilot had purposely lingered over their meal to keep him company.  He observed this, and effusively asked them not to mind him a bit, and to leave the table if they wanted to.  After expressing a few unreal excuses for their apparent rudeness, they were prevailed upon to go into the state-room, where the captain solemnly conveyed to Yaunie that he never thought he would live to have imposed upon him such humiliation.