Of this man, a toothless salt whose face was like an old potato, dark with the weather of vanished days and covered with warts, an affecting story was told: it was evening, and the room was full of seafaring men, and this man, whose name was John Halliburton, sat at the table with a long clay pipe trembling in one hand and a glass of hot rum and water in reach of the other. Several songs had been sung by members of the company, and some one, by way of a joke, asked old John to oblige. To the amazement of everybody the old man put down his pipe, took off his hat, out of which he drew a large red handkerchief with which he polished his face, and then, fixing his lustreless eyes upon the man who had asked him to sing, broke into a song in a strange, quivering, fitful note, as though you should hear a drunken sailor singing in a vault. The assembly was hushed into deep stillness. It was certainly a most unparalleled circumstance for old John to sing. In the middle of the second verse, some old nautical ballad popular fifty years before, he stopped, put his handkerchief into his hat, and his hat upon his head, and resumed his pipe, gazing vacantly at the man who had asked him to sing. "Pray, go on," said the man. "We are all delighted, Mr Halliburton. Have you forgot the words? There's some here, no doubt, as are able to remind ye." "Oh yes," said a voice. "Are ye speaking to me?" said old John. "Certainly," was the answer. "What d'ye want?" "We want you to finish the song you was just now singing and broke off in." "_Me_ singing!" exclaimed old John. "Why, yes, of course." "Me singing!" quavered old John, with a voice of amazement. "Why, I ha'nt sung this twenty year past." It was easily seen that the poor old man was deeply in earnest and was to be speedily distressed. It was an affecting exhibition of mental decay, and rough as the company were, they had the good taste to change the subject.