through the sill an' the head of Lammitter was lost in the smoke away above. “The American man took out his card and put it on the table. Esdras B. Longer is my name, America is my nation, 'Frisco is my resting-place, but this here beats Creation,' said he. Boys, giants — side-show giants - I minded to slide out of my bet if I had been overtopped, on the strength of the riddle on this pasteboard. I would have done it if you had topped me even by three inches, but when it comes to feet-yards — miles, I am not the man to shirk the biggest drink that ever made the travellers'-joy palm blush with virginal indignation, or the orang-outang and the perambulating dyak howl with envy. Set them up and continue till the final conclusion.' "O mon, I tell you 'twas an awful sight to see those four giants threshing about the house and the island, and tearin' down the pillars thereof an' throwing palm-trees broadcast, and currling their long legs round the hills o' Larut. An awfu' sight! I was there. I did not mean to tell you, but it's out now. I was not overcome, for I e'en sat me down under the pieces o' the table at four the morn an' meditated upon the strangeness of things. "Losh, yon's the breakfast-bell!" "BRUGGLESMITH "1 This day the ship went down, and all hands was drowned but me.-Clark Russell. THE first officer of the Breslau asked me to dinner on board, before the ship went round to Southampton to pick up her passengers. The Breslau was lying below London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and chains. The Black McPhee had been putting some finishing touches to his adored engines, and McPhee is the most tidy of chief engineers. If the leg of a cockroach gets into one of his slide-valves the whole ship knows it, and half the ship has to clean up the mess. After dinner, which the first officer, McPhee, and I ate in one little corner of the empty saloon, McPhee returned to the engine-room to attend to some brass-fitters. The first officer and I smoked on the bridge and watched the lights of the crowded shipping till it was time for me to go 1 Copyright, 1893, by D. Appleton & Co. home. It seemed, in the pauses of our conver sation, that I could catch an echo of fearful bel lowings from the engine-room, and the voice of McPhee singing of home and the domestic affections. 66 McPhee has a friend aboard to-night—a man who was a boiler-maker at Greenock when McPhee was a 'prentice," said the first officer. "I didn't ask him to dine with us because " "I see I mean I hear," I answered. We talked on for a few minutes longer, and McPhee came up from the engine-room with his friend on his arm. "Let me present ye to this gentleman," said McPhee. "He's a great admirer o' your wor-rks. He has just hear-rd o' them." McPhee could never pay a compliment prettily. The friend sat down suddenly on a bollard, saying that McPhee had understated the truth. Personaily, he on the bollard considered that Shakespeare was trembling in the balance solely on my account, and if the first officer wished to dispute this he was prepared to fight the first officer then or later, "as per invoice." "Man, if ye only knew," said he, wagging his head, "the times I've lain in my lonely bunk reading Vanity Fair'an' sobbin'— ay, weepin' bitterly, at the at the pure fascination of it." He shed a few tears for guarantee of good faith, and the first officer laughed. McPhee resettled the |