time to time, to set him barking again, I stumbled
up at last against the back of a house; and,
hearing voices inside, groped my way round to
the door, and knocked on it smartly with the
flat of my hand.

The door was opened by a slip-slop young
hussey in a torn gown; and the first inquiries I
made of her discovered to me that the house
was an inn.

Before I could ask more questions, the landlord
opened the parlour door of the inn and came
out. A clamour of voices, and a fine comforting
smell of fire and grog and tobacco, came out,
also, along with him.

"The taproom fire's out, says the landlord.
"You don't think you would dry more comfortable,
like, if you went to bed?" says he, looking
hard at me.

"No," says I, looking hard at him; "I
don't."

Before more words were spoken, a jolly voice
hailed us from inside the parlour.

"What's the matter, landlord?" says the jolly
voice. " Who is it?"

"A seafaring man, by the looks of him," says
the landlord, turning round from me, and speaking
into the parlour.

"Let's have the seafaring man in," says the
voice. "Let's vote him free of the Club, for
this night only."

A lot of other voices thereupon said, "Hear!
hear!" in a solemn manner, as if it was church
service. After which there was a hammering,
as if it was a trunk-maker's shop. After which
the landlord took me by the arm; gave me a
push into the parlour: and there I was, free of
the Club.

The change from the fog outside to the warm
room and the shining candles so completely
dazed me, that I stood blinking at the company
more like an owl than a man. Upon which the
company again said, "Hear! hear!" Upon
which I returned for answer, "Hear! hear!"
—considering those words to mean, in the Club's
language, something similar to "How-d'ye-do."
The landlord then took me to a round table by
the fire, where I got my supper, together with
the information that my bedroom, when I wanted
it, was number four, up-stairs.

I noticed before I fell to with my knife and
fork that the room was full, and that the
chairman at the top of the table was the man with
the jolly voice, and was seemingly amusing the
company by telling them a story. I paid more
attention to my supper than to what he was
saying; and all I can now report of it is, that
his story-telling and my eating and drinking
both came to an end together.

"Now," says the chairman, "I have told my
story to start you all. Who comes next?"
He took up a teetotum, and gave it a spin on
the table. When it toppled over, it fell opposite
me; upon which the chairman said, "It's
your turn next. Order! order! I call on the
seafaring man to tell the second story!" He
finished the words off with a knock of his
hammer; aud the Club (having nothing else to
say, as I suppose) tried back, and once again
sang out altogether, "Hear! hear!"

"I hope you will please to let me off," I said
to the chairman, "for the reason that I have
got no story to tell."

"No story to tell!" says he. " A sailor
without a story! Who ever heard of such a
thing? Nobody!"

"Nobody," says the Club, bursting out
altogether at last with a new word, by way of a
change.

I can't say I quite relished the chairman's
talking of me as if I was before the mast. A
man likes his true quality to be known, when he
is publicly spoken to among a party of strangers.
I made my true quality known to the chairman
and company, in these words:

"All men who follow the sea, gentlemen, are
sailors," I said. "But there's degrees aboard
ship as well as ashore. My rating, if you please,
is the rating of a second mate."

"Ay, ay, surely?" says the chairman.
"Where did you leave your ship?"

"At the bottom of the sea," I made answer
—which was, I am sorry to say, only too true.

"What! you've been wrecked?" says he.
"Tell us all about it. A shipwreck-story is
just the sort of story we like. Silence there
all down the table!—silence for the second
mate!"

The Club, upon this, instead of keeping
silence, broke out vehemently with another new
word, and said, "Chair!" After which every
man suddenly held his peace, and looked at me.

I did a very foolish thing. Without stopping
to take counsel with myself, I started off at
score, and did just what the chairman had
bidden me. If they had waited the whole night
long for it, I should never have told them the
story they wanted from me at first, having all
my life been a wretched bad hand at such
matters—for the reason, as I take it, that a
story is bound to be something which is not
true. But when I found the company willing,
on a sudden, to put up with nothing better than
the account of my shipwreck (which is not a
story at all), the unexpected luck of being let
off with only telling the truth about myself, was
too much of a temptation for me—so I up and
told it.

I got on well enough with the storm, and the
striking of the vessel, and the strange chance,
afterwards, which proved to be the saving of
my life—the assembly all listening (to my great
surprise) as if they had never heard anything
of the sort before. But, when the necessity
came next for going further than this, and for
telling them what had happened to me after the
saving of my life—or, to put it plainer, for telling
them what place I was cast away on, and
what company I was cast away in—the words
died straight off on my lips. For this reason—
namely—that those particulars of my statement
made up just that part of it which I couldn't,
and durstn't, let out to strangers—no, not if
every man among them had offered me a
hundred pounds apiece, on the spot, to do it!