CHAPTER TWO.
MY FRIEND THE BOATSWAIN.
I soon made the discovery on getting there, however, that I was neither alone nor unobserved; for a man called out to me almost the same instant that my feet touched the deck.
"Hullo, youngster!" he shouted.
"Do you mean me ?" I asked him politely, as father bad trained me always to address every one, no matter what their social condition might be.
"An' is it manin' yez, I am ?" retorted my interlocutor sharply.

"Tare an' 'ouns, av coorse it is! Who ilse should I mane ?" The speaker was a stout, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man, clad in a rough blue jersey as to the upper portion of his body, and wearing below a rather dirty pair of canvas overalls drawn over his trousers, which, being longer, projected at the bottom and overlapped his boots, giving him an untidy look.
He was busy superintending a gang of dock labourers in their task of hoisting up in the air a number of large crates and heavy deal packing- cases from the jetty alongside, where they were piled up promiscuously in a big heap of a thousand or so and more, and then, when the crane on which these items of cargo were thus elevated had been swung round until right over the open hatchway, giving entrance to the main-hold of the ship, they were lowered down below as quickly as the tackle could be eased off and the suspending chain rattle through the wheel-block above.
The clip-hooks were then unhitched and the chain run up and the crane swung back again over the pile of goods on the jetty for another load to be fastened on; and, so on, continually.
The man directing these operations, in turning to speak to me, did not pause for an instant either in giving his orders to "hoist!" and "lower away!" or in keeping a keen weather-eye open, as he afterwards explained to me, on the gang, so as to see that none of the hands shirked their work; and, as I stared helplessly at him, quite unable as yet to apprehend his meaning, or know what he wished me to do, he gave a quick side-glance over his shoulder to where I stood and renewed his questioning.
"Sure an' ye can answer me if you loike, for ye ar'n't dumb, me bhoy, an' ye can spake English fast enough.

Now.

I'll ax ye for the last toime--whare d'ye spring from ?" "Spring from ?" I repeated after him, more puzzled than ever and awed by his manner, he spoke so sharply, in spite of his jovial face and twinkling eyes.

"I jumped from that plank," pointing to the gangway by which I came on board as I said this.
This response of mine seemed, somehow, to put him into all the greater rage--I'm sure I can't tell why.
"Bad cess t'ye for an omahdawn! Sure, an' it isn't springin'-- joompin' I mane," he thundered in a voice that made me spring and jump both.
"Where d'ye hail from, me joker?
That's what I want to know.