inclined to take his future master's courage for granted as he makes his
calculations.

"I will take the Son of the Fool and the Cripple," he mutters
decisively. "They are good men, and we can always have the Gull for a
help when we need four."

A promising crew, by the names, say you of the North, who do not
understand Southern ways. But in Sorrento and all down the coast, most
seafaring men get nicknames under which their real and legal
appellations disappear completely and are totally forgotten.

The Fool, whose son Ruggiero meant to engage, had earned his title in
bygone days by dancing an English hornpipe for the amusement of his
companions, the Gull owed his to the singular length and shape of his
nose, and the Cripple had in early youth worn a pair of over-tight
boots on Sundays, whereby he had limped sadly on the first day of every
week, for nearly two years. So that the crew were all sound in mind and
body in spite of their alarming names.

Ruggiero sat on the box and waited, meditating upon the probable
occupations of gentlemen who habitually slept till ten o'clock in the
morning and sometimes till twelve. From time to time he brushed an
almost imperceptible particle of dust from his very smart blue cloth
knees, and settled the in-turned collar of the perfectly new blue
guernsey about his neck. It was new, and it scratched him disagreeably,
but it was highly necessary to present a prosperous as well as a
seamanlike appearance on such an important occasion. Nothing could have
been more becoming to him than the dark close-fitting dress, showing as
it did the immense breadth and depth of his chest, the clean-cut sinewy