'It was blowing a whole gale out of the southward and eastward. I have been at sea many a bad night in my life, but never one like that. The waves rolled mountains high and the spray was something awful. You couldn't see the sky for spray, and you couldn't see the sea for clouds. All at once I heard the cry of 'Man overboard!' I wish George would come. He can't have missed his way, Kate, and gone down to the kitchen. I saw your cook to-day as she took in the bread. Wonderfully pretty girl. Just the kind George in his unguarded moments always told me he liked--Mistress Alice, will you be good enough to tell me at what point of the story I left off.' 'When you looked you saw a shark.' 'Oh yes. I was hanging over the taffrail when under the counter I saw a shark. He was lying on his side and winking at my legs which were hanging over the taffrail. "Ho, ho! my fine fellow!" cried I, "is that where you are?" I told you he had been following in the wake of the ship for several days-- By Jove! George, I thought you'd never come. Sit down. A wing or a leg, George? No fowl? Ah well, the beef is excellent. Now, Mistress Alice, where was I in that story?' 'Somewhere about the stern and the wake.' 'Ah yes. It was the saddest thing I ever saw in all my life. You never saw an Irish wake, Marie?' 'No, never. Tell us about it.' What had happened to George? He was as pale as death. He ate nothing, and his mouth was squared and resolute-looking. 'Ah, never (unless you have a much less susceptible heart than I give you credit for) see a Irish wake. It is most affecting. In this case the poor fellow had been knocked over the stern of a boat in the Upper Lake, Killarney. He had been standing up tending the mainsail, when whiz, bang over goes the boom and knocks the poor fellow into the water. Of course, as he was connected with boats he couldn't swim a stroke, and so he was drowned. Most extraordinary thing, no man connected with ships or boats ever can swim! There ought to be an Act of Parliament forbidding any man to smell tar until he could swim round a man-of-war. Suppose a man on the Fire Brigade out of braggadocio insisted upon going to fires with his uniform steeped in petroleum, we should lock him up as an idiot. Talking of fires reminds me--' Nevill rattled on through the remainder of the time they sat at table, but it was under a great strain and sense of disadvantage. He could plainly see by George's face that the interview between son and mother had not been satisfactory,--in fact, had been decidedly unsatisfactory; but he did not want, if he could help it, the women to be vaguely depressed. He knew that under such circumstances Osborne was incapable of contributing in any way to the ordinary conversation, and that if he spoke all would at once know something was wrong.