in upon my meditations.

'Hoy there! Ahoy!' he bellowed, though his mouth was but a few yards
from my ear. 'Would ye come across my hawse without slacking weigh?
Clew up, d'ye see, clew up!'

'Why, Captain,' I said, 'I did not see you. I was lost in thought.'

'All adrift and without look-outs,' quoth he, pushing his way through
the break in the garden hedge. 'Odd's niggars, man! friends are not so
plentiful, d'ye see, that ye need pass 'em by without a dip o' the
ensign. So help me, if I had had a barker I'd have fired a shot across
your bows.'

'No offence, Captain,' said I, for the veteran appeared to be nettled;
'I have much to think of this morning.'

'And so have I, mate,' he answered, in a softer voice. 'What think ye
of my rig, eh?' He turned himself slowly round in the sunlight as he
spoke, and I perceived that he was dressed with unusual care. He had a
blue suit of broadcloth trimmed with eight rows of buttons, and breeches
of the same material with great bunches of ribbon at the knee. His
vest was of lighter blue picked out with anchors in silver, and edged
with a finger's-breadth of lace. His boot was so wide that he might
have had his foot in a bucket, and he wore a cutlass at his side
suspended from a buff belt, which passed over his right shoulder.

'I've had a new coat o' paint all over,' said he, with a wink.
'Carramba! the old ship is water-tight yet. What would ye say, now,
were I about to sling my hawser over a little scow, and take her in