"'Never you mind, skipper,' says the cook. 'If 'tis anything in the
shape o' woman,' says he, ''twill do.'

"'I 'low that Liz Jones would take you, cook,' says the skipper. 'You
ain't much on wits, but you got a good-lookin' hull; an' I 'low she'd be
more'n willin' t' skipper a craft like you. You better go ashore, cook,
when you gets cleaned up, an' see what she says. Tumm,' says he, 'is
sort o' shipmates with Liz,' says he, 'an' I 'low he'll see you through
the worst of it.'

"'Will you, Tumm?' says the cook.

"'Well,' says I, 'I'll see.

"I knowed Liz Jones from the time I fished Whoopin' Harbor with Skipper
Bill Topsail in the _Love the Wind_, bein' cotched by the measles
thereabouts, which she nursed me through; an' I 'lowed she _would_ wed
the cook if he asked her, so, thinks I, I'll go ashore with the fool t'
see that she don't. No; she wasn't handsome--not Liz. I'm wonderful fond
o' yarnin' o' good-lookin' maids; but I can't say much o' Liz; for Liz
was so far t' l'eward o' beauty that many a time, lyin' sick there in
the fo'c's'le o' the _Love the Wind_, I wished the poor girl would turn
inside out, for, thinks I, the pattern might be a sight better on the
other side. I _will_ say she was big and well-muscled; an' muscles, t'
my mind, courts enough t' make up for black eyes, but not for
cross-eyes, much less for fuzzy whiskers. It ain't in my heart t' make
sport o' Liz, lads; but I _will_ say she had a club foot, for she was
born in a gale, I'm told, when the _Preacher_ was hangin' on off a lee
shore 'long about Cape Harrigan, an' the sea was raisin' the devil.
An', well--I hates t' say it, but--well, they called her 'Walrus Liz.'