He became conscious of the concentrated significant gaze of the crew. Five pairs of eyes speaking as one, all saying “idiot” plainly, the boy’s eyes conveying an expression too great to be translated. Turning, the skipper saw the bye-play, and a light slowly dawned upon him. But he wanted more, and he wheeled suddenly to the cook for the required illumination. The cook said it was a lark. Then he corrected himself and said it wasn’t a lark, then he corrected himself again and became incoherent. Meantime the skipper eyed him stonily, while the mate released the cat and good-naturedly helped to straighten its tail. It took fully five minutes of unwilling explanation before the skipper could grasp the situation. He did not appear to fairly understand it until he was shown the chest with the ventilated lid; then his countenance cleared, and, taking the unhappy Billy by the collar, he called sternly for a piece of rope. By this statesmanlike handling of the subject a question of much delicacy and difficulty was solved, discipline was preserved, and a practical illustration of the perils of deceit afforded to a youngster who was at an age best suited to receive such impressions. That he should exhaust the resources of a youthful but powerful vocabulary upon the crew in general, and Sam in particular, was only to be expected. They bore him no malice for it, but, when he showed signs of going beyond his years, held a hasty consultation, and then stopped his mouth with sixpence-halfpenny and a broken jack-knife. THE SKIPPER OF THE “OSPREY” It was a quarter to six in the morning as the mate of the sailing-barge _Osprey_ came on deck and looked round for the master, who had been sleeping ashore and was somewhat overdue. Ten minutes passed before he appeared on the wharf, and the mate saw with surprise that he was leaning on the arm of a pretty girl of twenty, as he hobbled painfully down to the barge. “Here you are then,” said the mate, his face clearing. “I began to think you weren’t coming.” “I’m not,” said the skipper; “I’ve got the gout crool bad. My darter here’s going to take my place, an’ I’m going to take it easy in bed for a bit.” “I’ll go an’ make it for you,” said the mate. “I mean my bed at home,” said the skipper sharply. “I want good nursing an’ attention.” The mate looked puzzled. “But you don’t really mean to say this young lady is coming aboard instead of you?” he said. “That’s just what I do mean,” said the skipper. “She knows as much about it as I do. She lived aboard with me until she was quite a big girl. You’ll take your orders from her. What are you whistling about? Can’t I do as I like about my own ship?” “O’ course you can,” said the mate drily; “an’ I s’pose I can whistle if I like—I never heard no orders against it.”