"Begorra, an' I'm after knowin' that same. Weren't I in the Admiral Tronde, a bruck-up little one-gunned stame-kettle runnin' guns fur them Urriguay sports," cried Paddy excitedly.
"Were ye, Pat? Bully for you," went on the cockney. "I done some gun-runnin' too up the Persian Gulf; but h'I 'ad ter quit—the screw were good enuff, but the 'eat wos a knock-out. Lord love ye! W'y, we biled our cauffee on the shanks o' the anchors; s'elp me, but they wos allers red 'ot. An' th' ole man, 'e don' ever wear nuffin' but a bloomin' gal's night-gownd——"
"Heat don't worry me," interrupted Hank. "It's cold calls the turn on me. I was up the Behring once sealin' an' got my bellyful."
"Much ice?" inquired Jack casually.
"A pretty considerable mush of it."
"I was two months in the ice to the south'ard once in the Cairngorm," declared the rover.
"The hell yew war? 'Member speakin' the I.P. Rakes off the Dyeego Ramerrez? Yew had ye jibboom gone an' nought above the lower-mast forrard. Your ole man sent a life-boat aboard us fur spuds—said y'd got scurvy bad. By Davy, I allers allows thet were the dirtiest sea I ever see'd a boat live in."
"It was bad," agreed Jack. "We got stove in trying to get aboard again, and lost three men."
"Thet's right! I see'd yew wi' these very eyes, smashed to staves yew were; an' yew were in thet boat, eh?"
"Yes," said the Britisher quietly. "I was second mate of the Cairngorm, and had charge of her."