"Go long chop chop, soon lilly pijjin come down topside." His selection of me, though apparently a very flattering one, was due to the fact of my being the only one capable of squeezing through the port, Weeks, who had grown awfully fat on the voyage, being incapable of accomplishing the feat, while all the rest of us were far too big.
"How will ye be able to steer for Canton ?" asked Captain Gillespie sniffing--"even if ye know all about managing the boat ?" "Oh, sir," cried I, quite joyous at the idea of starting off on such an expedition and coming with a British gunboat to take the pirates by surprise and give them a licking, "Ching Wang'll see to the sampan, as he calls it, and I will steer, sir, if you give me the course, sir.
I've got a little compass here on my watch chain." "Humph!" he ejaculated; "I think ye'll do, boy.

Ye're smart enough at any rate for the job; and, besides, there's no one else that can get through the port.

Ye can go!" "Thank you, sir," said I, grateful for even this semi-reluctant concession, being afraid he might refuse; and then, squeezing gingerly through the port and carefully lowering myself down by a rope which Tim Rooney hitched round the captain's bunk, I landed on the bottom boards of the boat that old Ching Wang had ready below.
I recollect well Tim's whispering softly as I let go my hold of the port sill, "Sure, now, take care av y'rsilf, Misther Gray-ham, sorr, an' don't forgit what the skipper's tould you about your coorse whin ye gits outsoide the rafe; ye're to steer nor'-nor'-west, wid a little more west in it, an' kape a good look-out for the blissid gunboat--an'-- an' God bliss ye me bhoy, an' that's Tim Rooney's dyin' wish if ye niver say him ag'in!".