"Go on, Larkyns," I said, at this point, to change the conversation and cover the paymaster's confusion as he bent his head over his plate. "I want to hear that yarn of yours about Madeira." "All right, Johnny," he replied in his chaffy way; "only, you don't pronounce the name right, my son. It should be called `My-deary,' not `Madeir-ah.' Hang it all, Stormcock, stow that!" "Don't apologise," said the master's mate, who just at that instant had thrown a biscuit at Larkyns, causing the violent interjection which he interpolated in his story. "I thought I would supply the proper accentuation for you, that's all." "If you don't look out and leave me alone, I will pretty soon accentuate your nose, Stormy," retorted the other, all good humour again, as he always was; for he took a joke, even of the most practical sort, as freely as he perpetrated one. "Yes, Johnny Vernon, it should be called `My-deary,' and I'll tell you why. The island, so the monk told me, owes its origin, or rather discovery, to two lovers who fled thither in the year fourteen hundred and something. One of these lovyers, my young friend, was a Scotchman named Robert Matchim, and the other was a Miss Anna D'Arfet, a young lady residing at Lisbon, whose parents objected to Robert and refused to match her with Matchim." Mr Stormcock pitched another biscuit immediately at Larkyns, crying out at the same time-- "That's for your bad pun!" The wag, however, dodged it and proceeded with his yarn. "Being a Scotchman, although poor, as few of the nation are," proceeded he, aiming this retaliatory shot at the master's mate, who, he knew, hailed from the North and hadn't a spare bawbee to bless himself with, "our friend, Robert Matchim, being as brave as he was bold, would not be done by a pitiful Portuguese laird. So, he pawned the title-deeds of his ancestral estates in Skye, where I forgot to mention he lived when at home; and, chartering a caravel, which happened luckily to be lying at anchor off the port at the time, smuggled his sweetheart on board and sailed away--with the intention of eloping to France, where her stern paryent would, he thought, be unable to follow him for certain political reasons." "Very good so far," interposed Mr Stormcock again at this point, in an ironical tone. "Pray go on; it is most interesting!"