Here besides, as things turned out, no great period elapsed ere we hove in sight of each other again; aye, under circumstances, too, that have caused us to become closer companions than ever, as indeed we are now. I will tell you how this was. Not many months after our smashing up the Arabs and driving the Somalis out of the British protectorate back to their own inhospitable country, the _Mermaid's_ commission expired; when, instead of the cruiser going home to be paid off, a new crew was sent out to us from England, she still remaining on the station, in accordance with the routine at present in vogue. The old _Dromedary_, that brought out our relief, which has cruised more thousands of miles, I believe, on such fetching and carrying work than have ever been covered by the oldest ship in the Navy, took us back home in her; and she called in at Simons Bay, en route, to fill up with supernumeraries and other paid-off crews from ships belonging to the Cape station. Amongst those that came on board here were the officers and men of the _Grampus_, including none others than Captain Sackville, who had quite recovered from his wounds, Mick Donovan, and `Gyp.' I need hardly say what a jolly passage home we all had; Larrikins and Mick and I, with some other old shipmates of the _Saint Vincent_, yarning all the way from morning till night, not much work being wanted of us as we had fine weather throughout; while `Gyp,' who still retained his affection for me, exhibited his old bias for lower deck company and could not be kept away from the fo'c's'le where we were. Captain Sackville, of course, noticed this, but he was not a bit angry at it; and, on our leaving the old _Dromedary_ at Portsmouth, where we finally arrived safe and sound after a pretty speedy passage for such an old tub, he gladdened my heart when saying farewell by making me a present of `Gyp.' "Begorrah," as Mick related to Larrikins subsequently, when we returned to the depot, after our customary payoff leave ashore, "ye nivver sayd sich a coomin' home, sure, ez Tom hed, an' me too, bedad, whin we got up to the owld cottage at Bonfoire Corner. Sure, there wor Tom's faither a-sottin' in the garden in his owld armchair under the mulberry-tree, faith, afther Miss Jenny resayved us at the door--" "Ah," interposed Larrikins at this point, with a knowing wink. "But, what o' Tom's sister? Yer ain't told us about her at all, chummy. Did she give ye a kiss, now?" "Git away wid ye," cried Mick, giving him a dig in his ribs, and grinning the while all over his face at the recollection of something about which I might have told a tale if I had liked, before proceeding to go on with his story of the warm reception we had met with.