Mr. Brown was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;--could do, as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough, "heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the celebrated ---- of Boston,--and left her, as he told her agent, "because he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the ----'s lee-rail," he said, "was commonly out of sight, pretty much all the way from the Sand'eads to the Bocca Tigris." He was rich in what he called "'ats," having one for every hour of the day, and, for aught I know, every day in the year. It was Fred ----'s and my daily amusement to watch him, and we never seemed to catch him coming on deck twice in the same head-gear. He took quite a fancy to me, because I did not bother him when busy, and because I liked to listen to his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a 'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were left; but how to do it was another matter, with a sea like this running, and a cloud over the moon every other minute. I soon see that swimming wouldn't 'old out much longer, and I must try something helse. Now, Sir, what I'm a-telling you may be some use to you some day, if you have to stay a couple of hours in the water. If you can swim about as well as most men can, you can tell 'ow long a man's strength would last him 'ereaways to-night. Besides, I was spending my breath, when I rose on a sea, in 'ollering,--and you can't swim and 'oller. So I tried a trick I learned, when a boy, on the Cornish coast, where I was born, Sir;--it's one worth knowing. I doubled back my feet hunder me till my 'eels come to the small of my back, and I could float as long as I wanted to, and, when I rose on a wave, 'oller. They 'eard me, it seems, and pulled round for me, but it was an hour before they found me, and my strength was nigh to gone. I couldn't 'oller no more, and was about giving up. But they picked up the cook, and he told 'em he knowed it was Mr. Brown's voice, and begged 'em to keep on.