then, with some pardonable discursiveness, he said he was "terrible glad" to have the fleet around Peel, and not away in those outlandish foreign parts, Kinsale and Scotland; for when they were there he felt like the chairman's namesake, Christian, in the "Pilgrim's Progress." "And what is it he is saying in the good ould Book?" exclaimed Tommy?—"'My occipation's gone!'"
Then came more liquor and some singing. Christian sang too. He sang "Black-Eyed Sue," amid audible sobs.
"The voice he has, anyway; and the loud it is, and the tender, and the way he sliddhers up and down, and no squeaks and jumps; no, no, nothin' lek squeezin' a tune out of an ould sow by pullin' the tail at her, and a sorter of a rippin' up her innards to get the hook out of her gills."
"Aw, lovely he sang—lovely, uncommon."
"Well, I tould you so. I allis said it."
Kisseck listened to this dialogue at his end of the table with a lofty smile. "It's nothin'," he said, condescendingly. "That's nothin'. You should hear him out on the boat, when we're lyin' at anchor, and me and him together, and the stars just makin' a peep, and the moon, and the mar-fire, and all to that, and me and him lyin' aft and smookin' and having a glass maybe; but nothin' to do no harm at all—that's when you should hear him."
"More liquor there," shouted Tommy-Bill-beg, climbing with difficulty to his feet—"more liquor for the chair. And for some one beside—is that what they're saying? Well, look here! bad sess to it—of coorse,
