“The Ghost on Board Ship.”
I have followed the say, man and boy, any time these thirty years and more; and sure it’s but little I have to tell you about that same in the way of short commons, long voyages, mishaps, and shipwrecks that would be interesting to you, seeing that, in all rasonable probability, you have all of you had your fair share of the like.
However, maybe I can spin you a short yarn about what every one of you hasn’t seen, and that is a “ghost on boord ship.”
“A ghost on board ship!” chorused the sailors, turning eagerly toward the speaker.
Bedad, ye may say that, and as fine a ghost as ever mortial man set eyes upon.
You must know I was always partial to the say, and first tried my hand at a sailor’s life wid a cousin of my mother’s, who had a small sloop he used for fishing along the coast off the Cove of Cork.
It was on boord the little Shamrock I got my say-legs, and, by the same token, many a sharp rope’s-ending into the bargain.
I had plinty to ate, and plinty to drink, and plinty of hard work, too, as there were but three hands on boord—my cousin, one man, and myself, making up the entire crew.
I was well enough trated, and had no rason to complain.
The sloop was a fast sailer, and a good say-boat, and I ought to have been continted—but somehow it’s myself that wasn’t satisfied at all at all.