now, with firm grasp, and added to her former luminous address, "Your health, gentlemen, with a toast:

"Here's to the tar that drinks away,

And values not the score;

But boldly pays his money down,
Then goes to sea for more."

She at once suited the action to the word, and putting the vessel to her mouth, swallowed a considerable quantity of the liquor, and then passed it to Mr. Gullum, who drank with a native archness. "Here is success to all our undertake-ins," and handed the pot to Sharkish, who responded to Gullum's toast-" Here's wishing we may never be taken in ourselves. But, I say, Mrs. Cheatum," he continued, wiping away the froth of the ale from his mouth, “you did me scandalously out of my lodgers last voyage."

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Why you know," replied the considerate dame, we must all do the best we can for ourselves, Mr. Sharkish, and to say the truth, I don't think there's any harm in.. taking any body in fairly."

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'Fairly," roared out Sharkish in a horse laugh, "Ha! ha ha! well, well, I understand you, and am much of your mind; howsomever, I like all fair above board. I have got nine lodgers in the Mary Ann, that I should like to have again."

"That's false, Tom," interrupted Gullum, "I know you hav'nt got so many as nine, Sharkish, no gulling us now."

Mr. Sharkish would have looked angry, and with authority, if he had possessed the ability: he attempted it, but did not succeed; his sheepish looks told that he had been detected, and he attempted to rally, by observing, "I suppose you want to cheat us now don't you ?"

It is a dangerous thing to commit the keeping of our secrets and of our consciences, to unprincipled men, the least eruption, leads to a developement of the whole. Sharkish had touched on a chord in the system of Gullum which vibrated instantly. "Whew, my codger, not so fast," he replied, "you talk abont cheating-so, so,— who was it, tell me, if your memory don't fail, that put the conk shells into the horses' nose-bags, and swore he lost them out of the cart, eh!-put that in your pipe, my fine fellow."

"And who," shouted Sharkish, without caring to answer the proposed question, "made the men drunk, and then robbed them, eh! Mr. Gullum ?"

Mrs. Cheatum either foresaw that more evil would arise out of this altercation than was desirable, furnishing the by-standers with too much information concerning their practices, and which had better be kept secret, or otherwise she felt some qualms of conscience awakened within her, by the last remark, and therefore interposed her sophistry to quiet both the disputants, and her own inward monitor. "Come, come," she observed sooth- | ingly, "say no more about these matters; you know sailors will drink, and we cannot help it, besides, if they did not do so, we might at once close our establishments, for it is quite certain we could no longer live; come, gentlemen, drink up the ale, and if you must quarrel over such nonsense, at least defer it until our lodgers are taken care of. I shall go round to the bason, and get hold of the men and their things, or somebody else will."

"That's all very good, Mrs. Cheatum, only I don't like to be done you know, by Mr. Gullum," replied Mr. Sharkish; but Mrs. Cheatum waited not to hear the conclusion of this short reply, she moved off the ground with a nimble step, fearing, very reasonably, that if she remained longer, she should be superseded by others of her trade.

'Well, well," grumbled Gullum, "I have no wish to quarrel, only you seem as if you thought nobody wanted a chance but yourself."

"What, me,” shouted Sharkish, "no, no, honor bright is my motto; I want's nothing but what's fair and upright, not I."

"Well, come," said Gullum, "let us drink up the ale and be off, or old Mother Cheatum will cheat the pair of us."

The hint was seasonably given, and Sharkish felt it so. Instantly drinking what remained in the pot, they hastened from the place. By the time they arrived at the Bason, they found the ship moored head and stern, and some of the sailors already passing over the gangway towards the shore. The quick eye of Sharkum observed them in a moment, and recognized some of his former dupes.

"There's some of my chaps coming," he observed to Gullum, mending his pace as he spoke, "There's Tom

Cable, Jack Marline, and Joe White, I'll have them again if possible. Tom and Jack are two regular good uns; sound trumps every inch of them, they drink and keep alive, and don't trouble their heads about the reckoning.

Never did the steady eye of a setter keep his gaze more fixedly upon a hunted bird, than did these crimps upon their proposed victims. In a few minutes, they came up with a party of the just-landed sailors, when Gullum, with a familiarity which habit had rendered easy, and with an expression of sincere pleasure and friendship, which his heart could not feel, accosted one of them, exclaiming as he stretched out his hand, "Holloo Jack, is that you? Welcome home my hearty, how are you, my boy, I am right glad to see you safe and sound, I'll drink your health in an extra glass of grog to night."

The respond to his address was not such as Gullum expected, not such as he had been used to. The sailor eyed him with a true nautical twig, which took in the whole man in a moment, from the beaver hat to the shoestring, and replied in the genuine style of a British tar, "What, my noble dog-fish, is that you, shiver my timbers, but I thought you had gone out boon-passenger to Sydney, transported long ago."

The impertinent crimp became a chop-fallen craven in an instant: "Not so hard, my flower," he simpered out, endeavouring to conceal his confusion by a forced laugh, "hit more handsomely, will you."

Handsomely," roared Jack, looking him in the face after such a fashion as if he would have looked into his soul; "handsomely say you-why you have changed your colours surely, or you sound a false pipe; you know you are two-ends of a rascal. Did you not double me last voyage out of all my rhino in a week, and then turn me adrift without a shot in the locker. Handsomely, you lubber?"

"Gently, my lad," said the disconcerted Mr. Gullum, "not so much of your dry chaff, it is enough to choak a fellow, come, let's shove into the Fishing Smack,' and wash it down with a drop of Old Jamaica.'

"Avast there, messmate," rejoined the good-tempered, but inflexible tar; 66 what, you are at your old tricks again-want to sew me up, and then fleece me; it won't do, my old codger; I'll have no more truck with you land-sharks, boom off, my prince of thieves, before I open

my ports and pour in a broadside upon you." Sharkish felt half confounded, but to give up rich game was what red he did not understand; still to hold contest with one who w appeared to carry too many guns for him, he considered would be bad admiralship, and therefore, with an apparently familiar and jocose "Ha ha ha!" he turned from Jack and addressed the party indiscriminately"Well, come along lads, I shall stand a bottle of rum, however, merely to drink your healths at meeting."

"We shall not drink it, if you do," replied Tom Cable, we have hauled our wind my worthy."

Poor Sharkish looked more sheepish still, albiet he stood the fire more manfully than his cause deserved. "I see how it is my fine fellows," he replied, "that old hag, Madam Cheatum, has been craming some of her sweet lies down your throats, and so has poisoned your mind against your best friends;-come," he said, coaxingly, "tell us all she said, and I'll stand a couple of bottles, and rather than not merit your friendship, bottles all round."

"It won't do, Master Sharkish," objected Tom, "no one has poisoned our minds, the truth is, we are determined that neither yourself nor any other person, shall poison our carcasses any more.

"What do you mean, my dear Tom," inquired the astonished Sharkish, with his eyes as wide open as if he had just swallowed a handspike, and was straining hard to digest it" did you not always have the best of every thing in my house?"

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"All adrift again, Mr. Sharkish," interrupted Jack Merline, we mean you shall not again poison us with drink; can you box the compass now?"

"Poison you with drink," reiterated the astonished crimp, as if his conceptions had for the first time taken in his meaning, and yet anxious to hope otherwise; "Ah! I see how it is, Mother Cheatum has cheated us; she would befool you with her fine promises, and ugly daughters."

"No such thing, my admiral of the bloody flag," rejoined Jack, "the truth is, if your head is too thick to splice half words, we have left off drinking spirits! Ah, you may start and stare, my codger, it is the truth of a British tar. We have left off drinking them because we have found out that they are poison, destroying the whole ship, cargo and all-body and soul."

"What!" exclaimed the wondering crimp, scarcely crediting his own hearing; "sailors not drink liquor, how is this?"

"Well," replied Jack, "just to be civil for once to a rogue, I'll tell you how it is; our cook belongs to the Temperance Society, prosperity to it; and this last voyage he took out a freight of their books, which he lent out to the different berths to read; and so, what with reading the books, and noticing that he could stand to his work in all weathers better without rum or grog, than we could who drank it, we determined to try it ourselves, and in a short time found that we were improved by not taking it, though it is true we had hard work to give it up at first; however, we accomplished it, and since then we have had no messmates on the doctor's log, and no quarrelling in the berths."

"Why, Jack," cried the trembling crimp, for he saw too plainly the hopes of his gains were gone, you run on like a Methodist parson, and shame your character as an English sailor."

"No, my fine fellow, replied Jack, calmly, "you are all aback again, we did shame our characters as men, as well as English sailors, while we drank like fools and madmen; but now we are determined to retrieve that which rum made us throw away, and shall strive to persuade others to redeem their character too."

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Well, but where are your old mesmates," inquired Sharkish, hoping like a crafty counsel to divert the witness from the grand question; "where are Sam Block, Harry Clewline, Joe Backstay, and Patrick Fanagan."

"Šam and Joe killed themselves in the country, drinking arrack," replied Jack, " and we left Harry and Patrick laid up in the hospital without any hopes of recovery, from the same cause. Poor fellows," continued the sympathising rough sailor," they were stout, young, and hardy, and but for that abominable drink, would have been so still."

"Ah," observed Sharkish, archly, "it is a bad thing to drink too much of that rack,---poor fellows, I am sorry to hear it, but you know their time was come, and"--No, no," replied Jack, " they lived not out half their days, they killed themselves while their country wanted their aid, as many have done before. Peace to their