"That I will, ma'am," said Paul touching his hat as gallantly as an admiral; "you see, it was during a severe engagement with the Dutchmen that Mat and I were ordered to the main-top,—but hardly had we reached it, when a shot from the enemy cut our mainmast fairly in two, and hurled us both on to the enemy's deck, in the midst of more than a hundred heavy-bottomed Dutchmen! To dream of fighting against such odds, ma'am, you'll understand was, of course, out of all question; so we quietly walked our bodies, to the tune of 'donner and blitzen,' down below, to become close prisoners under hatches. Now it so happened, d'ye see, ma'am? that the only fellow-prisoners we found in the hole where they crammed us were cheeses and queer big tubs; and we felt a nat'ral sort of a curiosity to rummage about the hole, when left in the dark by ourselves. Clambering up some o' these huge tubs at one end of the hole, we both lost footing together, and fell head over heels into the midst of something that was remarkably soft; and there we struggled, and struggled hard, too,—but 'twas all in vain, we could not flounder out,—and so were content to remain closed on all sides up to the neck, with just our heads bobbing out, and gasping for breath. Shiver my timbers, if ever I was so pickled before or since! At length the Dutchman was taken; and when some of our lads made their way into the dark hole where we were, we began to hail 'em."—"Dreadnought a-hoy!" said Mat: "The Union Jack a-hoy!" said I: "Who's there, in the devil's name?" cried one: "Why that's old Mat Hardcastle's growl—where the devil is he?" said first one of our lads and then another. And, as sure as you're there, ma'am," continued Paul, growing more polite and gallant as he proceeded, "what with one noise or another, it wasn't until the lads had driven their marling-spikes through almost every cask in the hole, that Mat and I were discovered up to the neck in one of the Dutchmen's big butter firkins. We were a good deal ashamed, ma'am, o' course, being as how we were soaked to the skin in the grease, for it warmed, as we stuck in it; and no doubt by its melting, we should ha' been able to have got out of it without help, if we had had to stay much longer before we had been found. The worst of it was, we could not get time to strip for some hours after, and this made us both mighty uneasy, for many was the joke that was passed upon us as to how we liked our buttered shirts. But Mat's heart was always light, all his life long; and he answered all who asked that saucy question, just as he puts by all sorrow now, with "Butter _your_ shirt! Sing tantarara-bobus make shift!—and ever since then Matthew has kept his saying; and it is not a bad one, either, let me tell you, ma'am! what think ye?" concluded Paul Perkins, and took a stiffer pull at the grog than he had ever done that night, thinking that he deserved it for his cleverness, and feeling himself entitled to a double pull because he