"Sho, gen'l'muns! 'pears to me lak you don't nebber go on er deep-sea v'yge whar you gets de genuwine joe-flogger, an' de plum-duff, an' sich like," said Nimbus, the yacht's cook. "Ef you had, you wouldn' talk." In the luminous after-saloon the other party was seated at a table white with snowy damask, and gleaming with silver, which was at once the pride and care of old Mateo, the Portuguese steward. It was a party so overflowing with merriment and laughter, jokes and stories, that from one end of the table the young owner of the yacht was moved to call to his friend at the other, "I say, Wolfe, this reminds me of the mess aboard the old _Fish Hawk_, when we were 'Dorymates' together off Iceland." "It reminds me," said Glen Elting, "of the jolly mess of the Second Division, when Billy Brackett and Binney and I were 'Campmates' together in New Mexico." Said Sumner Rankin, "It reminds me of the cabin mess of the _Transit_, when we went 'Canoemates' together, through the Everglades. Eh, Worth?" "While I," chimed in Winn Caspar, "am reminded of the happy mess-table of the good ship _Venture_, on which we 'Raftmates' have just floated for more than a thousand miles down the great river." [Illustration: A reunion of "mates."] "Gentlemen," said Mr. Manton, rising, and holding high a glass filled with amber-colored river-water, "as I seem to have become a shipmate of Dorymates, Campmates, Canoemates, and Raftmates, I am moved to propose a toast. It is, 'Long life and prosperity, health and happiness, now and forever, to all true mates.'"