beverage, when Mr. Mischief, incessantly occupied in his vocation of wrong doing, and utterly incapable of resisting any good opening to get himself into a scrape, saw the grog-kid of the captain of the top’s mess standing by the fore-hatchway.  So he paced round, as if seeking for a bit of bread, but all the while keeping his face turned just so far from the fated grog-vessel that no one suspected his design.  On reaching the spot his heart began to fail him, but not his wickedness; indeed, his was the very beau ideal of that character described in the satire of Junius, which, “without courage enough to resist doing a bad action, has yet virtue enough to be ashamed of it.”  Whether or not these mixed motives influenced old Jacko, I cannot pretend to say; but there he sat chattering, screaming, and trembling, as if the sergeant’s cane had been within an inch of his hide.

“What ails you, my dear Mr. St. James?” said the captain of the top, playfully addressing the monkey.  “What are you afraid of?  Nobody is going to hurt you; we are all sailors and friends here, man.  Not a marine within hail of you!”

At this stage of the colloquy the sly rogue having mustered all his energies, fairly grasped the grog-kid in his arms, and, making a clean spring from the deck, placed himself, at the first bound, beyond the reach of the horror-stricken seaman.  This exploit was not so adroitly performed as it might have been if Jacko had been less agitated, and one-half of the delicious nectar in the sailor’s cup was jerked out.

“You bloody thundering rascal of a monkey!” bellowed the astounded topman; “let go the kid, or I’ll shy this knife at your head!”

The threat was no sooner uttered than executed; for the sailor, without waiting to see the effect of his summons, threw the knife; and had not his saintship ducked his head, there would have been an end of monkey tricks for that cruise.  As the glittering steel passed before the wicked scamp’s eyes, the flash deprived him of all recollection of the mischief in hand:  with a loud yell he leaped on the booms, and in his terror let the prize slip from his grasp.  It fell on the cooming of the hatchway, hung for one instant, and then dashed right down into the fore-cockpit, to the infinite astonishment of the boatswain’s yeoman, a thirsty soul, and familiar with drink in all its shapes, but who declared he never before had tried grog in a shower-bath.

Up started the enraged party of seamen on their feet.  “All hands catch monkey!” was the cry; and in ten seconds the whole crew, including the cook with his ladle, and his mate with the tormentors in his hand, were seen scrambling on deck.  Jacko scampered like lightning up the main-stay, and reached the top before any of the men, who had mounted the rigging, were half-a-dozen ratlines above the hammocks.  The officers rushed to the quarter-deck, naturally fancying from the bustling sounds that a man was overboard; but they were soon undeceived by the shouts of laughter which resounded from every part of the ship, low and aloft.