"It came o'er my soul, like the sweet south,
Soft breathing o'er a bed of violets."
"Benjamin Brail!" quoth the Irishman.
"Dennis Donovan!" said I.
And there we stood staring at each other as if we had seen a ghost.
"Pray, Mr Peak," said old Dogvane, the quartermaster (in the small vessel it was a difficult thing to avoid being an eavesdropper sometimes), "what do you think of that?"
"Poo," rejoined little Peak, "the devil, I suppose, is busy aloft."
"He don't often sing psalms on a Sunday evening, does he, Mr Peak?" rejoined old Dogvane.
The midshipman laughed.
"Ay, you may laugh, Mr. Peak—you may laugh—but I don't like them kind of sounds thereaway; and mark my words, Master Peak, we shall either have a gale of wind within eight and forty hours"——
"Or no," rejoined Joey.