"Tush, lad, I don't expect a salt-water yarn from you. I want a land yarn. I am sure, you have read a good many, and can think of one now. Just lead off, and when you get through, I'll try my hand at it."
Thus adjured, Charlie said, "Let me think a minute."
Bill leaned over the rail in silent expectation.
XIX.
CHARLIE'S LAND YARN.
Charlie deliberated a moment, when he chanced to think of Nicholas Nickleby, the only one of Dickens's works he had ever read, and which, as it had interested him exceedingly, had impressed itself upon his remembrance.
"Did you ever hear of Nicholas Nickleby, Bill?" he inquired.
"Yes," was Bill's unexpected response; "when I was at Liverpool three years ago, she was lying alongside our ship."
"She!" exclaimed Charlie, in amazement.