"Oh, do tell me the story, please, grandpop," exclaimed Ralph, "for it must be a funny one." "Um! Not so funny as you think, perhaps; but I'll spin you the yarn, and let you judge. Well, when I was a strapping young fellow, 'way back in the forties, I sailed out of the port of Boston as mate of the bark _Eagle_, bound to Hong-Kong, which place, as your geography tells you, is in China. We had a quick passage out, but found nothing in the way of a good freight just then offering for home, so we remained for several weeks with our mud-hook--as sailors call the anchor--dropped in the same place. It was the unhealthy season, and, one by one, our crew sickened, and were sent on shore to the hospital. Next the Captain was taken down, and I found myself, with the second mate, the only man left on board the vessel. "Just at this time the Captain was offered a good paying charter to carry a cargo up the coast, so he ordered me to ship a new crew for the trip, and to take his place as Captain, saying that he would be himself again when I returned. There was not a white sailor to be engaged in the port, so I shipped a crew of coolies, as the lower class of natives are called, stowed my cargo, and set sail; but as this class of Chinamen are very dirty in the way of their clothes and habits, I took care to lock the door of the forecastle-house, in which the sailors sleep, and to make the natives take up sleeping quarters on a lot of mats thrown on top of the cargo in the hold. "As ill luck would have it, the poor second mate, who had made several voyages to the pig-tail country, and could talk pigeon-English so as to be understood by the moon-eyed sailors, went out of his head with the fever, and jumped overboard in his delirium the second night after leaving port. This left me to deal with a crowd of men who could not comprehend a single order I gave them. However, as the place to which we were bound was only about two days' sail away, and as the wind was favorable, I kept the ship on her course. "Of all the exasperating times I have ever had, that was the worst. When I wanted the crew to man a certain rope, I was obliged to cast it off the pin, put it in their hands, and make signs to them what they were to do with it; but half the time they would slack away when I wanted them to haul, so that between my anxiety and ill-humor and their surliness we speedily got on very bad terms, and I soon noticed an ugly disposition on their part toward me. I believe that the men would have turned on me if it had not been for the Captain's big dog Nero, who followed me wherever I moved, and who growled wickedly at the evil-looking crew whenever he saw them look threateningly at me.