“Is the fool deaf?  Can ye use a needle and thread?”

“After a rough fashion, sir, and I can knit a bit.”

“Mr. Waters?”

A man with a gold band round his cap stepped forward and touched it.

“Take him to the sail-maker.  He can help to patch the old fore-stay-sail on the forecastle.  And you can—­”

The rest of the order was in a low voice, but Mr. Waters saluted again and replied, “Yes, sir.”

The captain saluted Mr. Waters, and then as Alister moved off, he said, “You’re not sick, I see.  Have you sailed before?”

“From Scotland, sir.”

Whether, being a Scotchman himself, the tones of Alister’s voice, as it lingered on the word “Scotland,” touched a soft corner in the captain’s soul, or whether the blue eyes met with an involuntary feeling of kinship, or whether the captain was merely struck by Alister’s powerful-looking frame, and thought he might be very useful when he was better fed, I do not know; but I feel sure that as he returned my new comrade’s salute, he did so in a softened humour.  Perhaps this made him doubly rough to me, and I have no doubt I looked as miserable an object as one could (not) wish to see.

“You’re sick enough,” he said; “stand straight, sir! we don’t nurse invalids here, and if you stop you’ll have to work for your food, whether you can eat it or not.”

“I will, sir,” said I.

“Put out your hands.”

I did, and he looked keenly, first at them, and then, from head to foot, at me.  And then to my horror, he asked the question I had been asked by the man who robbed me of my shilling.

“Where did you steal your slops?”

I hastened to explain.  “A working-man, sir, in Liverpool, who was kind enough to advise me, said that I should have no chance of getting work on board ship in the clothes I had on.  So I exchanged them, and got these, in a shop he took me to,” and being anxious to prove the truth of my tale, and also to speak with the utmost respect of everybody in this critical state of my affairs, I added:  “I don’t remember the name of the street, sir, but the shop was kept by a—­by a Mr. Moses Cohen.”

“By Mister—­who?”

“Mr. Moses Cohen, sir.”

When I first uttered the name, I fancied I heard some sniggering among the sailors who still kept guard over me, and this time the captain’s face wrinkled, and he turned to another officer standing near him and repeated,

“Mister Moses Cohen!” and they both burst into a fit of laughter, which became a roar among the subordinates, till the captain cried—­“Silence there!” and still chuckling sardonically, added, “Your suit must have been a very spic and span one, young gentleman, if Mister Moses Cohen accepted it in lieu of that rig out.”

“I paid ten shillings as well,” said I.

The laughter recommenced, but the captain looked wrathful.  “Oh, you paid ten shillings as well, did you?  And what the thunder and lightning have you tried to steal a passage for when you’d money to pay for one?”