"`Faith I'm not the bhoy fur to disobleege the ladies,' says I, `ye can give us a cup, if that's all ye wants me fur to do.' Wid that, Bridget ups with the taypot, a little brown one it wor, sure, by the same token, an' pours me out a cupful in a mug that lay handy sure on the counther, which I drinks to the hilth of her an' Missis Wilkins as wor standin' by. It wor right-down beautiful tay; so I has another one to the hilth of Bridget's husband the sarjint, an' thin another, that wor a little one faith! to the hilth of the babby; an', begorrah, sor, I rimimbers no more till this mornin' whin I fales so bad wid the rheumatics as I couldn't lift me hid out of me hammock. The sarjint says I wor droonk, but I worn't, sor; though somehows or t'other I thinks it must have been rhum I wor drinkin' at the rendywoo an' not tay as Bridget telled me at the toime, sayin' it wor good fur the stummick an' wud kape the cowld out!" "I don't believe a word of your story," I heard the doctor answer to this long and circumstantial yarn. "Why, Macan, you're drunk now!" "Me droonk now, sor?" repeated the other in a tone of mingled sorrow and solemnity. "Faith I'm as sobher as a jidge this very minnit, as I'm a livin' sinner!" "Don't tell me any more of your lies!" cried out the doctor irascibly at this juncture, interrupting what further asservation the corporal might have made in support of his unblushing assertion. "You can go forrud now and thank your stars I don't report you, as I had more than half a mind to at first. If I did, you'd be put into the black list and lose your stripes to a dead certainty." "May the saints presarve yer honner," exclaimed Macan with effusion as he was thus dismissed, but he was still not satisfied apparently at his word being doubted; for, as he passed us, working his way forward by a series of short tacks, he kept on muttering half aloud, much to our amusement, "It's all through that blissid Scotch sawbones wid his long `dog nose' as he calls it, sayin' it wor whisky. I'm as shober as a jidge, faith--as shober as a jidge!" No more unfortunate circumstance, however, could have occurred for the corporal of marines, in spite of the doctor having let him off so easily, for, through our overhearing this dialogue between the two, the yarn he had told of meeting his "cousin Bridget" soon got round the ship, and the men could always put him in a rage whenever they liked by an allusion to the "taypot" and his cousin's friend "Missis Wilkins." We stopped a little longer listening outside the sick bay, but soon gave up the pastime, nothing occurring to interest us during the medical examination of the new hands, a fresh batch of whom came aft, by the way, at Four Bells; for all of them were quickly passed by the doctor and were detailed for duty aloft and below, where many jobs were at a standstill for want of men.