"Sure an' if y're spilin' for a batin' I'm not the chap to privint you; but, if you must foight, why ye'll have to do it fair an' square.

Misther Gray-ham, sorr, jist give me the burrd as made the rumpus, I've a little cage in me bunk that'll sarve the poor baste for shilter till ye can get a betther one.

It belonged to me ould canary as toorned up its toes last v'y'ge av a fit av the maysles." "The measles ?" exclaimed Tom Jerrold, bursting into a laugh.

"I never heard of a bird dying of that complaint before." "Faix, thin, ye can hear it now," said the boatswain with some heat.
"An', sure, I don't say whare the laugh comes in, me joker! Didn't its faythers dhrop off av the poor craythur, an' its skin toorn all spotty, jist loike our friend Misther Wake's phiz here; an' what could that be, sure, but the maysles, I'd loike to know ?" "All right, bosun; I daresay you're right," hastily rejoined Jerrold to appease him; but he made me smile, however, by his efforts to look grave, although my own affairs were just then in such a critical position, with the prospect of a battle before me.

"I was only laughing at the idea of a canary with the measles; but I've no doubt they have them the same as we do, and other things like us, too." "In coorse they does, an' plinty of tongue, too, loike some chaps I've come across on shipboard!" replied Tim, all himself again in all good humour; and then, popping into his cabin, he reappeared quickly with the cage he had mentioned, saying to me, "Sorr, give me the burrd." I had a little difficulty in extricating the starling from its safe retreat, for it had crept within my flannel shirt inside my jacket, tickling me as it moved; but, going carefully to work, I finally succeeded in taking it out without hurting it.