I can point to a dozen in my short life, every one as remarkable, if not as startling, as this.

Here, I'll spin you a yarn: "It happened four years ago.

I had no moustache then, was fat like a whale, and first mate on the 'Dancing Kate', a pearler in the Indian Ocean, between Java and Australia.

That was sailing, mind you--real seamanship, no bally nonsense; a fight every weather, interesting all round.

If it wasn't a deadly calm, it was a typhoon; if it wasn't either, it was want of food and water.