"Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?" "Yarn!" said Jack, smiling--"what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night, though, for that same--the clouds flies high, and she's balling off a good ten knots sin' eight bells." "That she is, bo'--so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A1, as you are!" said one. "'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-war's-man, winking to the rest--"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night. Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought overmuch o' the tar, an' young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish--so if you says nay, why, we'll all save our grog, and get slewed as soon as may be." "Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavouring to conceal his flattered feelings, "what's it to be, though?" "Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man--"ay, give us the Green Hand!" "Ay, ay, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one--the listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship, pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house--a tall good-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and frank good-humour of a sailor in his firm weather-tinted countenance. To have the power of secretly contrasting his present position and manners with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's" previous biography, was the _acme_ of comic delight to these rude sons of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point.