“Man is the merriest species of creation; all above and below him are serious.”--ADDISON. “Let's up and away, Bill,” said Breezy Jim, as he started to his feet. “I'm dog tired of this game. We're just working for tucker for the boys and nothing--not even a smoke--for ourselves.” “Don't be in such a flurry. We might drop on a patch yet. I vote we stay for another week. The anchorage is all right, and the season's young. The little bit of fish we've got ain't too stinking. It'll pay expenses.” Placid and patient, the half-caste Solomon Islander, Billy Boolah, kept cheek on his impetuous partner, whose restless disposition forbade him to continue long in one stay unless circumstances were essentially favourable. Certainly fish were not too plentiful, but the aboriginal crew worked well, and were lighthearted almost to a fault. They had had no credit to pledge for the season's stores. They had merely to pick up inert and unresisting béche-de-mer from among the coral five fathoms down, where the deceptive sea looked no more than ten feet deep under the squalid flatties; to smoke and jabber in idle moments; to eat and to sleep, and to listen to Mammerroo's version of the opening phrases of “The Last Rose of Summer” on a mouth-organ worn with inveterate usage to the bold brass. The tune was not quite beyond recognition, and no musician was ever more in earnest, ever more soul-tied to an elusive, unwritten air than the black boy who wore little else than his own unwashed complexion and a strip of red Turkey twill. For long months he had pursued it with all the fervour of his simple soul, and though it said him nay, still did he hope and woo. Out of his scanty earnings he bought mouth-organs by the dozen, for he believed that owing to some defect on the part of such instruments the tune was impossible save to one. Would he ever obtain that prize? The organ which could play that tune as he had once heard it when his boss took him to a concert at Cairns had to be discovered, and to earn money to buy it Mammerroo shipped on these detestable béche-de-mer cruises. In the meantime he would play with all his energies and with endless repetition the halting, nerve-disturbing notes he knew to be incorrect. “That boy will drive me mad. He bought ten mouth-organs at Cooktown, and he hasn't got the one that plays the tune yet. Does this smell like 'The Last Rose of Summer'? Why, you can hear those fish of yours humming! What with hardly any fish, the stink of the whole boat, and that maddening mouth-organ, I feel almost inclined to jump overboard and marry a mermaid. Let's chuck it.” “It's you as got the bad breath, Jim. Every man when he gets nasty temper he gets bad breath. That tune it's little bit close up. He can play right up to the 'left blooming alone' sometimes.”