"It's a spankin' I'll give you," replied his guardian, lifting him
down from the timber baulks, and then assisting Emmeline, "in
two ticks if you don't behave. Come along, Em'line."

He started aft, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing.

As they passed the ship's bell, Dick stretched towards the
belaying pin that was still lying on the deck, seized it, and hit the
bell a mighty bang. It was the last pleasure to be snatched before
sleep, and he snatched it.

Paddy had made up beds for himself and his charges in the deck-
house; he had cleared the stuff off the table, broken open the
windows to get the musty smell away, and placed the mattresses
from the captain and mate's cabins on the floor.

When the children were in bed and asleep, he went to the
starboard rail, and, leaning on it, looked over the moonlit sea. He
was thinking of ships as his wandering eye roved over the sea
spaces, little dreaming of the message that the perfumed breeze
was bearing him. The message that had been received and dimly
understood by E mmeline. Then he leaned with his back to the rail
and his hands in his pockets. He was not thinking now, he was
ruminating.

The basis of the Irish character as exemplified by Paddy Button is
a profound laziness mixed with a profound melancholy. Yet Paddy,
in his left-handed way, was as hard a worker as any man on board
ship; and as for melancholy, he was the life and soul of the
fo'cs'le. Yet there they were, the laziness and the melancholy,