150 THK FLORIST. 



sent below, to their great content. The captain retired to his cabin 

 to wait for daylight, and the third mate and I adjourned to his cabin, 

 where my boy had got some coffee ready by the aid of a spirit-lamp. 

 There we discussed the supposed cause of the leak, which was proved 

 at dayhght to have been occasioned by a heavy sea striking the stern 

 and damaging some woodwork ; mischief which the carpenter in a 

 couple of hours full)'' repaired in the morning, and so needs no more 

 to be said about it ; my present business being to remember a little 

 of this excellent fellow, Taylor. 



Mr. Taylor was a man of about forty years of age, a first-rate 

 practical seaman, of the most unprovokable good temper, quiet, 

 smart, and always keeping his place with the men, who greatly re- 

 spected him, though he had received no education. He was an un- 

 bounded favourite of mine, and often afforded me a fund of diversion 

 in his recitals of the incidents of his life. Promotion he had never 

 sought, it had been thrust upon him. His constant expression, " I'm 

 as easy as an old shoe," was the key to his unambitious life. Bad 

 weather had no more effect on him than on a Mother Carey's chicken 

 (the stormy petrel) ; if his rest was broken, he stoically endured it ; 

 if he got plenty of sleep, he enjoyed it ; if he was wet through, he 

 shifted himself; and if the bad weather lasted long enough to soak 

 all his things, he felt for the least wet amongst them, drily remarking 

 he had one jacket left that had never been wet through ; he had had 

 it all his life, and it had never wanted mending. There was but one 

 thing that could have disturbed his equanimity ; and that was, the 

 being without tobacco. On the night in question, after we had dis- 

 posed of the coffee, and shifted ourselves into some dry under-gar- 

 ments, Taylor went to his chest and brought out a considerable-sized 

 linen bundle, which as he talked he deliberately unfolded. Shirt after 

 shirt was unrolled, until he came to a handkerchief, in which was 

 tightly bound up his store oi pigtail. " There," said he, displaying it, 

 and proceeding to cut off some and replenish his box, " I wonder 

 you never use it." " Why," said I, " it would make me sick." " It 

 might do so at first," he replied, "just as a new flannel-shirt frets 

 your skin for a while ; but it's warm, is it not ?" " Well, it is," said 

 I; "but still, if I were as comfortable without a flannel-shirt, I'd never 

 take to one." "Ah, but," said he, " if j'ou would but take to to- 

 bacco, you'd find you'd always a friend about you. If the captain's 

 out of temper and falls aboard of me, I take a bit of pigtail between 

 my teeth, and that employs my tongue better than answering him. 

 If I think of the hard life I've led, if it's only for a minute, I just 

 shift my quid, and that shifts my thoughts altogether. I had a sweet- 

 heart once, but she jilted me, and I believe it would have broken my 

 heart if it hadn't been for tobacco. You often say how well the men 

 behave with me to what they do to somebody else," pointing with his 

 thumb upwards, where the second mate was heard pacing the deck 

 over our heads. " Why, here it is," said he, " here's the secret; he 

 doesn't use tobacco. Now if a poor fellow in my watch has a worse 

 job than another, or a bad trick at the wheel, or gets wet through at 

 his look-out, I just give him a plug, and you should hear how heartily 



