"No, no! you must stay and have your portrait taken; you'll make a fine
picture."

"Hum; might ha', they used to say, thirty years agone; I'm over old now.
Still, my old woman might like it. Make so bold, sir, but what's your
charge?"

"I charge nothing. Five minutes' talk with an honest man will pay me."

"Hum: if you'd a let me pay you, sir, well and good; but I maunt take up
your time for nought; that's not fair."

However, Claude prevailed, and in ten minutes he had all the sailors on
the quay round him; and one after another came forward blushing and
grinning to be "taken off." Soon the children gathered round, and when
Valencia and Major Campbell came on the pier, they found Claude in the
midst of a ring of little dark-haired angels; while a dozen honest
fellows grinned when their own visages appeared, and chaffed each other
about the sweethearts who were to keep them while they were out at sea.
And in the midst little Claude laughed and joked, and told good stories,
and gave himself up, the simple, the sunny-hearted fellow, to the
pleasure of pleasing, till he earned from one and all the character of
"the pleasantest-spokenest gentleman that was ever into the town."

"Here's her ladyship! make room for her ladyship!" But Claude held up a
warning hand. He had just arranged a masterpiece,--half-a-dozen of the
prettiest children, sitting beneath a broken boat, on spars, sails,
blocks, lobster-pots, and what not, arranged in picturesque confusion;
while the black-bearded sea-kings round were promising them rock and