"I heard about that yarn when I was in the Channel Fleet," said another, who had just joined the group, and was busily engaged in ramming black tobacco into a still blacker clay pipe. "An' much as I likes Joe Dirham, I shall be obliged to tell 'im he's a liar if he persists in spinning that cuffer."
"'Tain't no more a cuffer than you are, Fred Money, for, as true as I sits 'ere, I was the man who saw it."
"What! You saw it."
"Yes."
"Joe," exclaimed his chum, in a mournful voice, "is it only plain water that you drank with your supper?"
"Never mind him, Joe," chimed in another, "but fire away."
"Well, when I was in the 'M——' in '91— she was a rotten old gunboat that would drift to loo'ard as fast as she would steam ahead—we left Portsmouth for Portland with a lot of diving gear for the Channel Fleet. It was Christmas Eve, and snowing like anything, I remember. Just as we had cleared the Needles, the old man called me —he was a Warrant Officer in charge—and says, 'Dirham, there's a blessed cat in my cabin. Get hold of her and pitch her overboard or she'll get hold of my canaries,' for he used to keep a couple of 'em caged up. Well, I grabs hold of this 'ere cat, and the brute makes for me and bites my finger. Although I was precious sorry for the animal, orders is orders, but before slinging it overboard I hits it behind the ear with a bit of iron bar, and stunned it. Then I lashes the iron on to its neck and over the side it goes.
"Back I goes to the old man's cabin. 'All correct, sir,' I reports. 'Very well, carry on,' ses 'e, 'but first 'ave a glass of rum.' Believe me, as I was drinking that, and the old man was sitting in his easy-chair with his legs on the fender, of the stove, that blessed cat, or its ghost, walked out from behind the sideboard, slipped over my boots and under the old man's legs, and disappeared under the bunk.
"My eyes were nearly startin' out of my 'ead, and I all but dropped the glass on to the floor. 'What's this, you lying rascal?' roars the old man. 'What do you mean by sayin' that you drowned that cat?' 'So I did, sir,' I answered, and told 'im exactly what I had done. I then searched every inch of the cabin, but no trace of the animal could be seen, an' the door was shut all the time. ''Elp me!' says he, all of a shake. 'It's a warnin'. Somethin's goin' to 'appen to me.'"
"And did it?" asked one of the men.