"You're another, you're another." Through the gilt bars of a cage hanging from a cleat on the foremast near them, Mariuch the parrot, proud of her blue and green and scarlet magnificence, was transfixing them with her cantankerous eye.
"You're another, you're another," she shrieked, always happy in the selection of the eleven epithets in her repertoire.
Spanish Dick playfully shook his fist at her, upbraiding the culprit in his own picturesque tongue.
"You infidel of many colours! I feed you an' keep you well—an' yet you do not believe me. My little Alfonso, you alone keep the faith." He looked down at the mongrel, who was frantically thumping his tail on the deck in evidence of his loyalty and confidence.
"I believe you, Dick," fibbed Sally, guessing at the trend of his tirade, and placing her hand sympathetically on his shoulder. "It's such a pretty story, and I do appreciate the way you've kept me from feeling worried and blue."
Wistfully she looked over the starboard rail, then straightened suddenly.
"Look, Dick—there's a steamer to starboard—it looks more like a steam yacht—why it looks as tiny as the toy ones Ben and Phil, when he was just a nice boy—used to sail."
She made her way aft along the trim deck.
She reached the after deck-house, steadied herself against the lee-rail, and listened to the hoarse commands from the Mate's brazen throat, the shuffle of feet on deck, the creak of block and pulley, and the snap of canvas, as the yards were braced and the ship came up into the wind. Above her the
