‘Arrah, but when will he cotch him there, think you, and Montgomery all the time perishing, the poor boy, for want of his revinge! And the loss of the safe too that weighs heavy upon his sperrits like a leaden sinker all the time—Och, the bloody robber!’ ‘Och! the murtherer,’ cried the other, ‘and didn’t I see the pistol in his hand when he stood up in the barge, and in a minnit Montgomery would have been come to his nat’ril end by foul means, but I jist chucked him under the ear a bit and he lighted down in the bottom of the boat like a breaker full of water.’ ‘Bad luck to the likes of him, Jamie, the unspakable murthering scoundrel! It’s the like of him that spoils the counthry entirely, and a poor man like you and me is scragged for trying to get a dacent living in our own way.’ ‘Och, botheration! don’t spake to me Patrick, for I’m as mad as my skin can hold now, when I think that I didn’t put the could lead into his bowels, but it was all on account of the slip of a gal that would have given the ala-r-m if I had shot him, jist.’ ‘You shot him once, Jamie, and if—’ ‘Ah, boy, if I had took a fair aim in the boat, but my head was lower than my heels, as I was tumbling over like a duck wid one wing, and the ball jist touched him in the ribs, like—but no matter, Patrick, Montgomery will come to his revinge through Master Blodget who pretends to be a gentleman like hisself, though he’s one of us sacret like, for the benefit of the society, jist.’ Here the two amiable interlocutors were interrupted by a squabble that had grown up between the long boat steerer and some Chilean new comers whom he had desired to ‘keep it up,’ and not satisfied with applying ‘moral suasion’ to the case, he had taken the liberty to drag one or two of them into the middle of the floor by their long ear locks. Not caring to dance on compulsion, they struck long-legs with their fists, and he gave them battle. He kept them at a distance a few moments with his long arms, but they made up for this by drawing their _cochillars_. Brandishing their knives they rushed upon him with great fury. The other whalemen interfered in behalf of their shipmate, while all the _cholars_ present took sides with their countrymen. The battle threatened to be serious, and blood had already begun to flow, when the door opened and a stout, broad-shouldered man entered the apartment. ‘Charley, is that you?’ shouted the master of the house. ‘Yes, what is the muss?’ cried the new-comer, whom the reader will recognize as the hero of the fire who took the ladder on his shoulders—‘Hullo! here! knives out! daggers drawn! Down, you rascals!’ Charley then seized two of the most forward of the combatants in his Herculean grasp, and hurled them against the wall, while the rest, recognizing the famous engineer, fell back, breathing heavily and eyeing their adversaries with murderous spite.