In working out among the many isles which stud that magnificent bay, bracing the yards sharp to port and then to starboard every few minutes, a tug steamer nearly ran foul of her. "Look out!" shouted the carpenter, who was probably thinking of his new paint, while assisting to get the anchor a-cockbill; "are your eyes no better than sojers' buttons, Noah?" Old Noah, who handled the ship to perfection, disdained to reply as he looked grimly at the puffing, pursy tug; but, nevertheless, contrived to let the foreyardarm get foul of the foretopmast rattlings of an ugly, squat, hermaphrodite brig[*] which shot suddenly round the little isle of Paqueta, going at great speed, with a vast fore-and-aft mainsail. [*] A vessel with a schooner's mainmast and brig's foremast. "Hallo, Noah," cried Morrison; "are you playing at sojers with that wheel?" "Are you going to sleep? Wipe your eyes with the flying jib," added Bartelot angrily, while some men jumped aloft and got the hamper clear. "Dash my wig!" growled Noah, "after clearing a dirty smoke-jack, to run foul o' that ere confounded butter-box! 'tain't like me, sir, 'tain't like me." "I know it is not like your steering, you old Triton," said Tom Bartelot; "but keep a bright look-out for the next craft that comes near us, or your next glass of grog won't be measured by the rule of thumb." Poor old Noah, who had been a man-of-war's-man, and served with the Black Sea fleet at Sebastopol, and who rather prided himself upon his steering, almost wept with shame and vexation. Spasms twisted his ancient visage, which was wrinkled like the kernel of a dry nut, and his grey eyes, the pupils of which were like herring scales, glared as he griped the wheel, with an air as much as to say: "Thumb-grog or not, sir, pity the next craft as I runs foul on--damme!" And here, for the information of the uninitiated in such matters, we may mention that the grog so specially mentioned, referred to that made for the watch who came below in the dark; it was measured by dipping the thumb into the can, to ascertain when it contained enough of rum before adding water thereto; but, as the nights were often cold as well as dark, the regular old salt had usually no sensation in his thumb till the rum rose to the second joint thereof. "'Twarn't my fault, sir!" resumed Noah, as Bartelot came aft; "that hermaphrodite brig don't answer her helm a bit--see how her mainsheet jibs." "She is an old tub," said Bartelot, "and rolls at least twenty times per minute in a sea-way, or, like a crab, goes sideways, broadside-on, and any way but ahead." "Shiver my topsails!" shouted Noah, with delight, "if she won't be bump ashore upon that blowed island of Packwetty, and sarve her right, too."