“’Tis the little yellow devil again, and me on my back like a turtle. Says he, ‘The honourable Irishman no puttee Okyada on the floor.’ Says I, ‘Ye wisp of hay, I could knock ye down with my thumb.’ ‘The honourable Irishman try,’ says he. So I just put my hands upon his shoulders and gave him a bit of a push. Sons of Ireland! he dropped to the floor directly I touched him, and where is the relic of Timothy McShanus? Sure, he caught me on the soles of his feet as I fell over him, and shot me twenty yards—me that has the blood of kings in me veins. He grassed me like a rabbit, sir, and there are those who laughed. _Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est._ Let them hear Martial and be hanged to them!” I comforted Timothy with what words I could, and told him that they were bringing breakfast up to the deck. “I want a few words with Larry and yourself,” said I, “and hungry men are poor listeners. You have amused the crew, Timothy, and that is something in these days. Be thankful to have played such a noble part and come and eat immediately. There is a capital fish curry—and the loaves are hot from the oven.” “Faith,” he replied, “if you make me as warm inside as I am out, ’twill be my clothes I am selling to the natives.” And then he asked almost pitifully. “’Tis not to say that ye are going back to Europe, Ean, me bhoy?” “The very thing in my mind, Timothy. I’ll tell you when we have had our ‘parritch.’ We were not born to spend useful careers in the Doldrums. Let us remember it after breakfast.” They had stretched a friendly awning over the aft deck, and hereunder we took our coffee and such food as a man cared to eat in such a temperature. When breakfast was done and we had lighted the morning cigarette, delicious beyond words under such circumstances, I began to speak very frankly to Timothy and the Captain of our present situation and the impossibility of continuing it further.