"I was nearly helpless with laughing, though I knew if the concern went over it would be no laughing matter for me. Well, by good luck she came round--the quartermaster was a strong man at a rope's end. First of all she slewed her neck round, and I could see those tender, loving eyes under the stars sort of saying: 'Cruel man! What are you doing to my tail?' Then the foot came on board, and she bumped herself up under the awning, looking ready to cry with disappointment. The funniest thing was she didn't make any noise--a pig would ha' roused the ship in no time--only every time she dropped her foot on the deck it was like firing a revolver, the hoofs clicked so. We headed her towards the bows, back to her moorings--just like a policeman showing a short-sighted old woman over a crossing. The quartermaster sweated and panted and swore, but she never said anything--only whacked her old head despairingly against the awning and the funnel case. Her feet woke up the whole ship, and by the time we had her fairly moored fore and aft the population in their night-gear were giving us advice. Then we took up a yard or two in all the moorings and turned in. No other animal got loose that voyage, though the old lady looked at me most reproachfully every time I came that way, and 'You've blasted my young and tender innocence' was the expression of her eyes. It was all the quartermaster's fault for hauling her tail. I wonder she didn't kick him open. Well, of course, that isn't much of a yarn, but I remember once, in the city of Venice, we had a Malayan tapir loose on the deck, and we had to lasso him. It was this way": "_Guzl thyar hai_," said the steward, and I fled down the companion and missed the tale of the tapir. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: Vol. V., Jan.--March, 1889.] A SMOKE OF MANILA[4] The man from Manila held the floor. "Much care had made him very lean and pale and hollow-eyed." Added to which he smoked the cigars of his own country, and they were bad for the constitution. He foisted his Stinkadores Magnificosas and his Cuspidores Imperiallissimos upon all who would accept them, and wondered that the recipients of his bounty turned away and were sad. "There is nothing," said he, "like a Manila cigar." And the pink pyjamas and blue pyjamas and the spotted green pyjamas, all fluttering gracefully in the morning breeze, vowed that there was not and never would be. "Do the Spaniards smoke these vile brands to any extent?" asked the Young Gentleman travelling for Pleasure as he inspected a fresh box of Oysters of the East. "Smoke 'em!" said the man from Manila; "they do nothing else day and night." "Ah!" said the Young Gentleman travelling for Pleasure, in the low voice of one who has received mortal injury, "that accounts for the administration of the country being what it is. After a man has tried a couple of these things he would be ready for any crime."