While he was asking questions and listening to my replies, I quietly observed the miscellaneous contents of the cabin. A curious place it was--half cabin and half shop. From the ceiling hung many hams and pieces of bacon, smoked geese, pots and pans, bundles of tallow candles, and strings of onions. On two shelves nailed athwart the compartment were rows of canisters containing coffee, tea, rice, and other luxuries and necessaries, besides bottles of drugs, bars of soap, squares of salt, and other articles of commerce, to be retailed to customers in the remote islands. Presently a seaman, who was addressed as Jerry, came below and took the potatoes from the fire, while the skipper drew a small table to the middle of the floor and set it ready for dinner. The potatoes were placed in a large dish in the centre of the table where we could all reach them, and a joint of corned beef was added, with plenty of oatcakes, cheese, and salt butter. When all was ready for the meal the mate appeared, from I know not where, and took his seat opposite the skipper, and I drew my stool between them, while the man Jerry sat nearer the fire on an upturned cask. The mate, whose name was Peter Brown, was a red-faced little man with a nose that had a decided list to the starboard, very untidy in his dress, and given a bit to swearing, but a real good sort of fellow, as I afterwards found, and a capital seaman. He had served in English ships in the Baltic trade, but getting knocked about in a storm rounding Cape Wrath, breaking his arm and his nose, he had been put ashore at Kirkwall, where he had met with Captain Flett and joined the Falcon, thirteen years before this time. "And now, my lad," said Flett, blowing a hot potato that he held in his horny hand, "what brings ye all the way to Kirkwall on a cold day like this? Ye didna tell us that." "Well, captain," I said, looking down at my platter and wondering how I could eat its plentiful contents, hungry though I was, "I just sauntered along to see if I could get some work. My mother's sorely needin' help now, ye ken, since father was drowned, and I maun be doing something." "Ay, ye're right there, lad; ye're right there. But what kind o' work were ye seekin'?" "I carena what it be, if it's just work," I replied. "But I was thinkin' I'd go in one o' the Kirkwall ships if there was one wantin' a lad." "Weel, that's just most amazing!" exclaimed Flett, dipping his hand into the dish and bringing forth another steaming potato. "For our lad, Jack, has taken a strange misliking to the Falcon, and run away to a bigger ship. "Jerry," he asked, turning to the seaman, "did ye hear onything o' young Jack this mornin'?" "Ay," said Jerry. "He sailed yestreen in the Foaming Wave, the lazy rascal." "We'll need a lad in his place then," said Peter. "Could Ericson come aboard when we're round in Stromness?"