matter with him?' said Finch, more attentive than before; 'you don't mean to say?--go on, Mr Macleod.' The second mate, however, looked cautious, closed his lips firmly, and twirled his red whiskers, as he glanced with one eye aloft again. 'Hoo!' said he, carelessly, 'hoo, it's nothing, nothing--just, I'm thinking, sir, what they call disgestion ashore--all frae the stommach, Mr Finch. We used just for to lock the state-room door, an' never let on we heard--but at any rate, sir, _this_ is no the thing at all, ye know! Mester Semm,' continued he to the fat midshipman, who came slowly up from the steerage, picking his teeth with a pocket-knife, 'go forrid and get the bo'sun to turn up all hands.' "'Sir,' said I, stepping up to the mate next moment, before the round-house, 'might I use the freedom of asking whereabouts we are at present?' Finch gave me a look of cool indifference, without stirring head or hand; which I saw, however, was put on, as, ever since our boating affair, the man evidently detested me, with all his pretended scorn. 'Oh certainly, sir!' said he, 'of course!--sorry I haven't the ship's log here to show you--but it's two hundred miles or so below St Helena, eight hundred miles odd off the south-west African coast, with a light westerly breeze bound for the Cape of Good Hope--so after that you can look about you, sir!' 'Are you _sure_ of all that, sir?' asked I, seriously. 'Oh no, of course not!' said he, still standing as before, 'not in the least, sir! It's nothing but quadrant, sextant, and chronometer work, after all--which every young gentleman don't believe in!' Then he muttered aloud, as if to himself, 'Well, if the captain _should_ chance to ask for a _green_ leaf, I know where to find it for him!'