The poor old skipper mooned in the cabin.  Mahon undertook the cooking, and unexpectedly developed all a Frenchman’s genius for preparing nice little messes.  I looked languidly after the rigging.  We became citizens of Falmouth.  Every shopkeeper knew us.  At the barber’s or tobacconist’s they asked familiarly, ’Do you think you will ever get to Bankok?’ Meantime the owner, the underwriters, and the charterers squabbled amongst themselves in London, and our pay went on.. . .  Pass the bottle.

“It was horrid.  Morally it was worse than pumping for life.  It seemed as though we had been forgotten by the world, belonged to nobody, would get nowhere; it seemed that, as if bewitched, we would have to live for ever and ever in that inner harbour, a derision and a by-word to generations of long-shore loafers and dishonest boatmen.  I obtained three months’ pay and a five days’ leave, and made a rush for London.  It took me a day to get there and pretty well another to come back—­but three months’ pay went all the same.  I don’t know what I did with it.  I went to a music-hall, I believe, lunched, dined, and supped in a swell place in Regent Street, and was back to time, with nothing but a complete set of Byron’s works and a new railway rug to show for three months’ work.  The boatman who pulled me off to the ship said:  ’Hallo!  I thought you had left the old thing. She will never get to Bankok.’  ’That’s all you know about it,’ I said scornfully—­but I didn’t like that prophecy at all.

“Suddenly a man, some kind of agent to somebody, appeared with full powers.  He had grog-blossoms all over his face, an indomitable energy, and was a jolly soul.  We leaped into life again.  A hulk came alongside, took our cargo, and then we went into dry dock to get our copper stripped.  No wonder she leaked.  The poor thing, strained beyond endurance by the gale, had, as if in disgust, spat out all the oakum of her lower seams.  She was recalked, new coppered, and made as tight as a bottle.  We went back to the hulk and re-shipped our cargo.

“Then on a fine moonlight night, all the rats left the ship.

“We had been infested with them.  They had destroyed our sails, consumed more stores than the crew, affably shared our beds and our dangers, and now, when the ship was made seaworthy, concluded to clear out.  I called Mahon to enjoy the spectacle.  Rat after rat appeared on our rail, took a last look over his shoulder, and leaped with a hollow thud into the empty hulk.  We tried to count them, but soon lost the tale.  Mahon said:  ’Well, well! don’t talk to me about the intelligence of rats.  They ought to have left before, when we had that narrow squeak from foundering.  There you have the proof how silly is the superstition about them.  They leave a good ship for an old rotten hulk, where there is nothing to eat, too, the fools! . . .  I don’t believe they know what is safe or what is good for them, any more than you or I.’