“Morning, Jimmy,” said the mate, as the man brought him and Lemuel their portions. “I hate to have the dining-room chairs off a paintin' when there's so much style about everything else, and I've got a visitor with me. But I tell him he'll have to take us as he finds us, and stand it this mornin'.” He wasted no more words on his joke, but plunging his large tin spoon into his bowl, kept his breath to cool his broth, blowing upon it with easy grace, and swallowing it at a tremendous rate, though Lemuel, after following his example, still found it so hot that it brought the tears into his eyes. It was delicious, and he was ravenous from his twenty-four hours' fast, but his companion was scraping the bottom of his bowl before Lemuel had got half-way down, and he finished his second as Lemuel finished his first. “Just oncet more for both of us, Jimmy,” he said, pushing his bowl across the board; and when the man brought them back he said, “Now, I'm goin' to take it easy and enjoy myself. I can't never seem to get the good of it, till about the third or fourth bowl. Too much of a hurry.” “Do they give you four bowls?” gasped Lemuel in astonishment. “They give you four barrels, if you can hold it,” replied the other proudly; “and some the mates _can_, pretty near. They got an awful tank, as a general rule, the pards has. There ain't anything mean about this house. They don't scamp the broth, and they don't shab the measure. I do wish you could see that refrigerator, oncet. Never been much at sea, have you, mate?” Lemuel said he had never been at sea at all. The other leaned forward with his elbows on each side of his bowl, and lazily broke his hard-tack into it. “Well, I have. I was shipped when I was about eleven years old by a shark that got me drunk. I wanted to ship, but I wanted to ship on an American vessel for New Orleans. First thing I knowed I turned up on a Swedish brig bound for Venice. Ever been to It'ly?” “No,” said Lemuel. “Well, I hain't but oncet. Oncet is enough for _me_. I run away, while I was in Venice, and went ashore--if you can call it ashore; it's all water, and you got to go round in boats: gondolas they call 'em there--and went to see the American counsul, and told him I was an American boy, and tried to get him to get me off. But he couldn't do anything. If you ship under the Swedish flag you're a Swede, and the whole United States couldn't get you off. If I'd 'a' shipped under the American flag I'd 'a' been an American, I don't care if I was born in Hottentot. That's what the counsul said. I never want to see that town ag'in. I used to hear songs about Venice--'Beautiful Venice, Bride of the Sea;' but I think it's a kind of a hole of a place. Well, what I started to say was that when I turn up in Boston, now,--and I most generally do,--I don't go to no sailor boardin'-house; I break for the Wayfarer's Lodge, every time. It's a temperance house, and they give you the worth o' your money.”