"Dull life this, isn't it?"

"Yes." So he was on board a man-of-war—
petty officer, too— thirteen years, and wouldn't
e here now but for an accident four months
ago. Had been on the coast of Africa, passed
Gibraltar a dozen times; didn't care for any sort
of weather purwided there was plenty of
sea-room, which there was not when he once was in
a sou'-wester in the Mosambique Channel. No,
a tornado was not sudden; contrairy, it
always gave you three-quarters of an hour to
take down sail and get all square. No captain,
if he was really captain in his own ship and not a
sort of foster-child of the first-lieutenant, had any
right to let any of his men get wet in a tornado;
there was time enough to put all under cover
afore the tornado broke. Some of them white
squalls were twice as bad.  A captain as really
was a captain in his own ship, such a man as
Captain Rood as the Amphitrite buried when
she was taking in money at Chili, was the
captain as he liked to serve under. Did he carry
pistols? Yes, one by day and two by night, for
signals; and rockets too. Dippington was
a troublesome station, because they wanted
watches on the pier night and day to see everything
as came in, right or wrong, riglar or
unriglar. He wished me a very good night. That
was eight o'clock; he was off duty now, and came
on again at four in the morning. He wished me
a very good night— " Good night, sir."

A gorgeous flame, however, was in the sky,
wrangling with a pile of electric ash grey clouds.
The sea was rose-coloured— the sky deepened to
purple— it was dark before all the stars lit their
lighthouse lamps, and so did the North Foreland,
which shone out like a small sun among
them. Here my friend Hanno, who prides
himself on his Carthaginian descent, would quote
Horace, but I will not, on any account; a truism
not seeming to me anything wiser because it is
in Latin.

I had need of a barber. I found one who
kept the circulating library. He requested my
name. He told me it gave him the greatest
trouble to get distinguished visitors' names
correctly. Would I believe it, only that morning a
Mr. De Frieze had come and complained he was
put down De Sneeze! Names were always
getting into knots.

My friend was a perfect specimen of the poor
watering-place barber. The weather was very
catching (short or long, sir?); always observed
it was so after a long prevalence of the east wind
(hair very dry, sir; do you use any pomade?).
Now it was first the wind, then the weather, got
the upper hand— weather and wind, wind and
weather (short over the ear? Yes, sir); glad to
see I wore beard and moustaches, advised every
gent to do so; acted as respirator, protected the
tonsils, kept out the dust; had a brother, a fine
tenor, yes, sir, who could get up to A and B
with the greatest ease; he held out against beard
for a long time, very long time; left for three
months, came back with a swingeing pair of
moustaches (look in the glass and see if that
is short enough); had a dread now of their being
sandy; advised him a certain wash that tinged
without dyeing; it was a secret, but he did not
care mentioning it; he told him it was the very
thing; he ordered a five-and-sixpenny bottle
from London, and the effect was astonishing.
Had I ever had excavation of blood on the head?
Sometimes the effect of injudicious bathing.
Could he recommend me any wash for the head?
Certainly he could. Had I never heard of his
celebrated Golden Oil? Agents all over London
— cases sent away everv day— surprised! Desk
full of letters— sent off that morning a case of
six to Hon. Mr. Foozle, Whitewash Villa,
Worcester. A letter yesterday from Captain O'Toole,
some castle near Dublin, couldn't remember the
name of the castle; letter from Dr. Hardbox,
mentioning astonishing effect of oil on Mrs. Blackline,
who had evinced symptoms of baldness in
lateral regions of the scalp— at once tonic,
cleanser, and strengthener. The miserable London
pomades left a deposit and turned acid—
that was. the end of it— turned acid. This was-
what he lived by, making the Golden Oil.
Dippington season only three months; couldn't live
without patent for Golden Oil. Did I see that
transparent bottle? that was the beautiful and
nutritious Golden Oil. Did I see that dark liquid?
that was the Royal Odoriferous Fluid expressly
made to be used with it, and which, shaken
together, formed a mellow and invaluable cream.

My personal friend Coxen, who calls his boat
by the aphoristic name of " Help me and I'll
help you," is a good type of the Dippington
boatmen. He has not a quick imagination, nor
is he lightning-quick at repartee, but he is a
brave, honest, stolid, unflinching, faithful, crafty
old sailor, and I respect him, though he does
hammer for half an hour at the same idea, and
leave it at the end of this time rather bruised,
distorted, and misshapen. His craft (I don't
refer to the "Friend in Need" sailing-boat)
consists in himself trying to charge you twice
as much per hour as any one else, and in scudding
you out to such a distance from any known
land that no canvas wing, or flying jib, or
any shaking out of canvas, will get you in at
the time you expected and intended to pay
for; otherwise he is a rare old Neptune, and his
stories of diving, smuggling, and wrecking, throw
great light on the manners, customs, and moral
standard of Dippington, which, with its golden
and emeraldine sea, and its chalky ramparts of
cliff, I take to be quite a type of sea-side places.

It is a sight to see him with his massy red
braces, a foot wide each, crossing his
indigo-coloured Jersey, that fits his brawny chest and
arms like a Norse body-suit of mail, his enormous
full-bodied breeches, reaching up almost to his
arm-pits, his alert, nimble feet (sailors' feet are
generally small), cased in canvas shoes, his strong
brown hands, white at the knuckles, grasping
lightly, yet surely, the familiar oar, whose broad
blades force the boat on with such quick, strong,
and equal pulse. As my young friend Parkins
sits gravely holding the tiller-ropes and nodding
at us (me and Coxen), as we bend, like two
portions of the same body, simultaneous at the oars.