It was the chorus to one of them; and, to say the truth, nobody that I know has ever been able to pick any particular meaning out of it; but that, to be sure, is the case with many a song nowadays. At length said he to Jack, "Now, my dear boy, if you follow me, I'll show you my _curiosities_!" He opened a little door, and led Jack into a large room, where Jack saw a great many odds and ends that Coomara had picked up at one time or another. What chiefly took his attention, however, were things like lobster-pots ranged on the ground along the wall. "Well, Jack, how do you like my _curiosities_?" said old Coo. "Upon my _sowkins_,[8] sir," said Jack, "they're mighty well worth the looking at; but might I make so bold as to ask what these things like lobster-pots are?" "Oh! the Soul Cages, is it?" "The what? sir!" "These things here that I keep the souls in." "_Arrah!_ what souls, sir?" said Jack, in amazement; "sure the fish have no souls in them?" "Oh! no," replied Coo, quite coolly, "that they have not; but these are the souls of drowned sailors." "The Lord preserve us from all harm!" muttered Jack, "how in the world did you get them?" "Easily enough: I've only, when I see a good storm coming on, to set a couple of dozen of these, and then, when the sailors are drowned and the souls get out of them under the water, the poor things are almost perished to death, not being used to the cold; so they make into my pots for shelter, and then I have them snug, and fetch them home, and keep them here dry and warm; and is it not well for them, poor souls, to get into such good quarters?" Jack was so thunderstruck he did not know what to say, so he said nothing. They went back into the dining-room, and had a little more brandy, which was excellent, and then, as Jack knew that it must be getting late, and as Biddy might be uneasy, he stood up, and said he thought it was time for him to be on the road. "Just as you like, Jack," said Coo, "but take a _duc an durrus_[9] before you go; you've a cold journey before you." Jack knew better manners than to refuse the parting glass. "I wonder," said he, "will I be able to make out my way home?" "What should ail you," said Coo, "when I'll show you the way?" Out they went before the house, and Coomara took one of the cocked hats, and put it upon Jack's head the wrong way, and then lifted him up on his shoulder that he might launch him up into the water. "Now," says he, giving him a heave, "you'll come up just in the same spot you came down in; and, Jack, mind and throw me back the hat." He canted Jack off his shoulder, and up he shot like a bubble--whirr, whirr, whiz--away he went up through the water, till he came to the very rock he had jumped off, where he found a landing-place, and then in he threw the hat, which sunk like a stone.