“Why, dew tell—want to know?” says I; “have you lived to your time o’ life without tastin’ spirretus licker? Waell, I swow, you oughter be the commodore of all them cold water clubs, and perpetual president of all temp’rance teetotallers. Go ahead, matey; pilot the way to your shanty, and I’ll roll the barrel arter you. I’ll sune give you a drink o’ licker that will jest take the shirt-tail off eeny thing you ever did taste, now I tell you.” Waell, the critter flopped ahead, for you see its the natur’ o’ the marmen, seein’ as they’ve no legs, only a fish’s tail what’s bent under them, jest like the lower part o’ the letter J, to make way by floppin’ their starns up and down, and paddlin’ with their hands—somethin’ between a swim and a swagger—but the way they get through the water is a caution. I rolled the tub along over the smooth white shiny sand, and the crabs and lobsters skeeted off right and left sides out o’ my way regular skeered, and big fishes of all shapes and makes, with bristlin’ fins, swum close alongside me, and looked at me quite awful with their small gooseberry eyes, as much as to say, “What the nation _are_ you at?” Bymeby, the marman brought up in front of rayther a largeish cave or grotto of rock and shell work, kivered with korril and sea-weed. So, you see, the tub was put right on eend in one corner; I made an enquerry o’ the marman if he had a gimblet, and he said he b’leved there was such a thing in the hold or cellar; he’d found a carpenter’s tool-chest in a wreck a few miles to the easterd, and he fotched away six or seving of the leetle fixins, thinkin’ they might be useful to hum—so, he opened the back door and hailed a young marman to bring him the gimblet. Seein’ as there was no benches nor nothin’ to sit down on, which marmen and marmaids don’t desire, cos they’ve no sittin’ parts to their bodies, which is all fish from their waistbands, I jest sot on the top o’ the brandy tub, and took an observation of the critter before me. His face was reglar human, only it looked rayther tawney and flabby like a biled nigger, with fishy eyes, and a mouth like a huge tom cod. His hair hung stret down his shoulders, and was coarse and thick, like untwisted rattlin’; his hands were somethin’ like a goose’s paw, only the fingers were longer and thicker; and his body was not exactly like an Injin’s nor a nigger’s, nor a white man’s—nor was it yaller, nor blue, nor green—but a sorter altogether kinder mixed up colour, lookin’ as if it were warranted to stand the weather. Jest abeout midships, his body was tucked into a fish’s belly, with huge green scales right down to the tail.