AN IMAGINARY SHIPWRECK. 9

this brig of yours knocks me silly. According to what
your crowd has told, she has been run down, struck a
reef, foundered from some unknown cause, and been dis-
masted in a typhoon, all within fifty miles of here, and
during the past twenty-four hours.”

The sailor looked at Ben a few moments as if trying
to decide whether that appearance of innocent faith was
natural or assumed, and then, waving his pipe in the air
to give greater emphasis to his words, he said slowly:

«See here, my. young an’ bloomin’ shipmate, you ’re
gettin’ out of your reckonin’, When an old shell-back
like me tells a boy like you what happened yesterday, it
all stands for truth, an’ he don’t want to get himself into
a howlin’ muss by tryin’ to pick flaws in the yarn.”

“No, I s’pose not,” Ben replied reflectively, as if the
matter was something of which he had not thought pre-
viously ; “but when an old shell-back like you tells a boy
like me a different yarn from what his shipmates have
been spinning, it’s kind of natural to want the thing
explained. I’d like to know just how the Starlight did
go down.”

“Well, you’ve got it from me straight. It ain’t my
fault if I’ve shipped with a lot of green hands what don’t
know the difference between a collision at sea and a
typhoon, is it? When aman asks me for a true yarn, he
gets it. Do you see?”

« Yes, I see, so give me the yarn.”

“What do you mean? Haven't I jest been tellin’
you all about it?”