upon the ships of the Royal Navy; and if you will include in your estimate the Grimalkins I have sold, or given, to millers, warehousemen, wholesale grocers, and provision merchants...." "I reckon, Captain, that will come to about quarter of a million pounds a year, not taking into account shillings and pence," broke in Squinting Jack to free the Captain from his obvious difficulty. "That is a moderate estimate; still I will accept it. Quarter of a million pounds annually for twenty years, friends and neighbour! Have I not done my part in liquidating the national debt?" "Cats aren't what you might call nearly extinct animals same as they unicorns. Us ha' got more home than us knows what to do with," remarked a lady timidly. "Us drowns 'em mostly," observed a matron who looked capable of doing it. "Not cats like these--the latest triumph of scientific inbreeding," the Captain shouted. "Oh no, sir! Ours be bred all nohow," said the timid lady. "Don't the monkeys tease 'em, Captain?" asked the Gentle Shepherd. "The simians have sufficient intelligence to understand that my felidæ are famous for the claws. Beneath that tree," continued the Captain, "about three paces from the side of my nephew, you see the giant tortoise, which is the greatest antiquity that I possess--next, of course, to the Egyptian mummy. That tortoise, my friends, has lived in this world during the last five hundred years." "Ain't that wonderful!" gasped a lady. "I captured it upon the beach of one of the Galapagos Islands, where it had just succeeded in laying an egg." "Him lay eggs! Then all I can say is he'm the funniest old bird I ever did set eyes on," cried a lady who was famous for her poultry. "How did you manage to get hold of his birth certificate, Captain?" asked Squinting Jack. "Tortoises live for ever, if you let 'em alone--that's a proverbial fact," stammered the Captain, somewhat taken aback. "You can tell his age by--by merely glancing at his shell. This tortoise has his shell covered with tarpaulin to prevent the newspaper cuttings from being washed off by rain; but if it was removed you would see that the shell is yellow. It is a well known scientific fact that the shell of a tortoise is black during the first century of its life; takes on a bluish tinge for the next two hundred years; and becomes mottled with yellow when it approaches the enormous age of five hundred years." "Same as me," said the Yellow Leaf sadly. CHAPTER III THE CAPTAIN MAKES HISTORY One day George entered the churchyard and set his face towards a big sycamore, with the resolution of setting his back against it. He had been tempted by the wide trunk and smooth bark for a long time; but his attempt to reach the tree failed entirely because it stood upon the unfrequented side of the churchyard, and was surrounded by an entanglement of brambles and nettles some yards in depth.