"Not much of that either, Sir. It's just the colour of tea, Sir--if it had but the flavour." "_If_"--ah! that terrible if. What a difference it made to all concerned in its introduction into that sentence--"_if_ it had but the flavour!" The smell of the water, when it entered the cabin, was bad enough to sicken the keenest appetite; it was sufficiently disgusting to make the strongest individual there wish that he had no nose, no taste, no recollection of a better and purer element, while drinking it. The water was dead, corrupt, and had been so for the last fortnight; but it was all they had wherewith to slake their thirst. The breakfast this morning was reduced to a small plateful each of oatmeal porridge, made with the said _rich_ water, with porter or Edinburgh ale for sauce. A very little of this strong food satisfied Flora. The Captain and Lyndsay pronounced it "not bad;" while poor James Hawke ate it, with the tears running down his cheeks into his plate, to the great amusement of Boreas, who told him "that he had discovered a sauce for stirabout he never saw eaten before." They had scarcely concluded their scanty meal, when Sam presented the Captain with a dirty, three-cornered note, which, he said, Mr. Lootie had ordered him to deliver _instantly_! "What's in the wind now?" said the old sailor. "I'm not a very good scribe, and the fellow writes such a cramped fist that I can't make it out. Do, Mrs. Lyndsay, oblige me by reading it." The note was very brief, very insolent, and certainly to the point. The S, which commenced the Sir that headed the missive, had a most forbidding appearance. The loop was formed like the lash of a horsewhip, and reached half down the epistle; thus-- "Sir,--I demand the use of the tea-pot! as part of our agreement. If this is longer denied, I shall look upon you as an infernal, swindling, old scoundrel!!! "JAMES LOOTIE. "August 16, 1832. Brig _Anne_. "He may be d--d!" cried Boreas, in an ecstasy of rage. "But that's too good for him. Many an honest fellow meets with that fate, who would scorn to speak to such a low, mean, pitiful thief!" "Don't put yourself into such a passion, Captain," said Lyndsay. "The man does not deserve it; it would gratify him to know that he could annoy you by his impertinence. Just send Sam up with the empty tea-pot, and your compliments, and tell him that the tea is all out, and he is quite welcome to the use of the pot for the rest of the voyage." "Ha, ha!" said the Captain, rubbing his hands; "that's the way to exasperate him. Thank you, Mr. Lyndsay, for the suggestion. Go, Sam, and make the experiment." In a few minutes Sam returned with a very rueful face, holding his hand to his head, minus the tea-pot. "Well, what did the rascal say?"