refuge in the ocean cavelets at the bottom of that miniature sea, for
Long Forsyth was so very large, and created such a terrible
disturbance therein, that no fish exposed to the full violence of the
storm could have survived it!

"Wot a hobject!" exclaimed Joe Dumsby, a short, thickset, little
Englishman, who, having been born and partly bred in London, was
rather addicted to what is styled chaffing. "Was you arter a mermaid,
shipmate?"

"Av coorse he was," observed Ned O'Connor, an Irishman, who was
afflicted with the belief that he was rather a witty fellow, "av
coorse he was, an' a merry-maid she must have bin to see a human
spider like him kickin' up such a dust in the say."

"He's like a drooned rotten," observed John Watt; "tak' aff yer
claes, man, an' wring them dry."

"Let the poor fellow be, and get along with you," cried Peter Logan,
the foreman of the works, who came up at that moment.

With a few parting remarks and cautions, such as,--"You'd better
bring a dry suit to the rock next time, lad," "Take care the crabs
don't make off with you, boy," "and don't be gettin' too fond o' the
girls in the sea," &c., the men scattered themselves over the rock
and began their work in earnest, while Forsyth, who took the chaffing
in good part, stripped himself and wrung the water out of his
garments.

Episodes of this kind were not unfrequent, and they usually furnished