"When I was young I followed the Equator From Pole to Pole in the ship Perambulator, A four-wheeled schooner, a smoky old freighter, Loaded with sulphur for an old dead crater In the Andes Mountains, and a night or two later With a three-knot gale blowing loud and rude As the dark grows darker and the gale increases Of a sudden we strike and we goes all to pieces On the forty-seventh parallel of latitude. And then and there we formed a committee And went in a body up to London City And walked up the steps and pulled the little bell, And spoke out bold to the Lords of Creation Where they sat in their wigs making rules of navigation, And explained to 'em the dangers of the Deadly Parallel. 'Take 'em down and pull 'em in,' That's the way we did begin: ''Tisn't leaks nor 'tisn't whiskey Makes the sailor's life so risky, It's the parallel as lies acrost our track. It's the Deadly Parallel, lying there so long and black, Is the subject of our moderate petition; 'Tisn't much that we are wishin', But we humbly beg permission To implore,-- Coil 'em up, we implore, where they won't be in the way, Out of sight, safe ashore, we humbly pray; For there's many a tidy bark Strikes against 'em in the dark And is never never heard of any more. So we'll thank you heartilee If so very kind you'll be And remove this awful danger from the sea.' But we couldn't make 'em do it; No, they simply wouldn't do it; And the bailiff shoved us gently from the door. And we wept uncommon salty, For their reason did seem faulty, Any way that we could view it: And the reason which they gave us Why they really couldn't save us Was because the thing had ne'er been done before; No, such a thing had ne'er been done before." Mr. Mizzen stopped again, and looked along the deck and up at the masts, and said, "I can't get it out of my head that the deck is slanting a little more than usual; the ship doesn't seem to come up well at the stern. However,--would you like to hear any more of this song?" Everybody begged him to go on. The Cabin-boy plucked Freddie's sleeve. "I've done it. You'll s-s-s-see! Won't that M-m-marmaduke and that M-m-m-mizzen sing another tune when they f-f-f-find out?" Freddie looked at him in amazement; but the Able Seaman was commencing the third verse of his song: