"Won't you please to tell us about that?" asked George.
"Wot d'ye s'pose I are a-doin'? Singin'?"
George looked so humble at this rebuke that the Old Sailor burst into another of his hearty, silent laughs, vainly tried to see through the fog once again, and then exclaimed:
"Pickle me in a tin box full o' oil fur a bloomin' sardine ef this here ain't the werry identical kind o' day wot it happened on. I were in Calcutter, w'ich the same it ain't no sort o' place at all. I landed there from a consid'able v'yage, an' had five hundred dollars a-comin' to me, an' I got 'em, too. So I laid out to have a good time in Calcutter. I staid there a month, an' at the end o' that interestin' period I didn't have nothin' left o' my five hundred 'cept a linen duster an' a black eye."
"My son," said the Old Sailor, solemnly, "that 'ain't got nothin' to do with this 'ere yarn wot I'm a-tellin' of. An' also it ain't perlite fur to try fur to switch gentlemen off the course. Now where were I?"
"In Calcutta, sir," said George, with grave respect.
"An' not so werry good, too. Bein' as how I were on my beam ends, I made shift to see as how I could git afloat ag'in. So I walked down to the docks. Down in the big dry dock I see the _Queen o' Spades_ jess ready to git out. I axed a few questions, an' I larned that she'd been undergoin' repairs an' were to sail fur Al Kamakh the next day, with a scratch crew. I'd bin in Al Kamakh oncet, an' I thort as how, not bein' a werry pertikler pusson, I'd jess as lief go there ag'in. So I went aboard the _Queen o' Spades_ an' interjooced myself to Cap'n Philander Montgomery Boggs. An' he sez to me, sez he, 'Ye jess come right. My second mate he went ashore yistiddy, an' he never come back, an' now he can't come back nohow; an' you can have his berth ef you want it.' An' me wantin' putty much anythin', havin' nothin' to speak on 'ceptin' the linen duster an' the black eye aforesaid, I took that berth.
"The next day we got under way. The reg'lar run o' the _Queen o' Spades_ were from Al Kamakh to Kangaroo, Australey, an' she'd bin a-repairin' at Calcutter 'cos there weren't no dock big 'nuff to hold her atwixt that an' London. She were called the _Queen o' Spades_ 'cos she dug so many holes in the bottom o' Al Kamakh Bay a-goin' in an' out, she drawin' twenty-seven feet of water, an' the bay havin' only twenty-nine feet in the channel, an' it weren't much o' a channel at that. Fact is, the Al Kamakh an' Kangaroo line, owin' to the permisc'ousness o' their steamers about hittin' ground, were gin'rally knowed as the Overland Route. Howsumever that 'ain't got nothin' to do with this 'ere yarn wot I'm a-tellin' yer. Waal, we 'ain't got no such steamers here as them. W'y, the _Queen o' Spades_ are six hundred and fifty feet long, an' are got four smoke-stacks, each one hundred feet high, an' big enough around fur to march a company o' soldiers through in full front. An' they don't carry only one mast jess fur signalling an' they make twenty-two knots an hour all the time, 'ceptin' goin' to harbors, w'en they sometimes don't make no knots at all; 'cos w'y, they're aground. An' the cabins is all full o' gold an' diamond fancy-work an' stained glass winders till ye'd think ye was in a palace. They has to have 'em like that 'cos the most passengers is Indian princes an' rajahs an' bunnias an' jampanis an' khitmatgars an' things goin' down to Australey to drink the waters for jungle fever; an' them fellers all has to have a floating palace, or else they go home an' start a new war with England, an' so Tommy Atkins has to git killed some more.
