But an end came to all this happy time, for Dennis acquired undue fat and fell into moralizing, sedate, and dignified ways; then he lost his sense of humor, his fondness for fun, and at last he forgot the laboriously taught proprieties of ship etiquette and sea life. Could he have been dreaming of the lost wallowings of his race, the prizes of unalloyed wealth that lay in sun-bathed mires? The truth is, Dennis degenerated with his prosperity, and became touchy and captious. We would have borne with his ailments, for he had sailed thousands of miles with us, and had such a way of cocking his weather eye knowingly to wind'ard, such a rolling gait, and such a heroic fondness for 'baccy and lobscouse, that we would have cherished him to the end. It was somewhere about the last of June, and we were at anchor off Papaete, in Tahiti, when the Captain said to me, in his quiet way, "You will have to send the pig ashore; the executive officer reports him unfit for duty." Of course this sealed the fate of Dennis. So I sent for the man who looked out for him, and said: "Barbe, my lad, it will be the Fourth of July next week, and Dennis has to be turned ashore or eaten. If you wish, your mess may have him for dinner on that holiday." Barbe glared at me in astonishment, almost in horror, as if I had suggested he was a steamboat sailor, and not a man-of-war's man born and bred, and then said, mournfully: [Illustration: "WHY, SIR, I'D AS SOON EAT MY BROTHER AS THAT PIG."] "Why, sir, I'd as soon eat my brother as that pig--as that Dennis, sir. He's weathered o' all we have, and I'd as leave stick my knife into a babby as into that animal. Of course, sir, if it's go ashore, go it is, sir. But I'd like to make terms with the man that's to have him, so Dennis will get the treatment and the kindness he larned with us, sir." It was as I had expected, and so the arrangements for his new home ashore were made. _Eheu, fugaces!_ Dennis went ashore the next day in the dingy--bag and hammock, ribbons, dhudeen, and potato--all the men clustering in the bridleports and gangways to see him off, and the officers waving a farewell from aft. As his pigship pulled under the bows I heard from forward a rousing cheer, which was the last ship greeting he was ever to know. A countryman of ours had drifted into that land, and Dennis had been consigned to his care under a guarantee that his later days would be spent on a plantation inland and never killed. [Illustration: DENNIS O'KERRY.]