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marrineer."
"A what, sir?" said the boy, staring.
"Marrineer--seaman. Fore the mast man, ship now lying off the port o' Torquay. Whatcher doing there?"
"Cry-ying, sir," came for answer, with a piteous sob.
"Cry-hying, you young swab?" roared the man, as if he were speaking through a storm. "Here, sop that up. Father been leathering yer?"
"No, sir."
"No, Jack Jeens!" yelled the man. "Sir, indeed! Jack Jeens--that's my name. England is my dwellin' place--leastwise, when I arn't off France and Spain, or in the 'Terranium leathering the French. Now, then, who has been givin' it to you? Mother, p'r'aps, and turned you out of doors?"
"No, sir," sobbed the boy, with a piteous look, in the gathering darkness.
"Yah!" came so savagely that the boy started to run; but the grip upon his shoulder tightened, and he was forced back against the bars of the gate. "Now, just you look here, messmet. You're such a little un that I don't like to hit yer for fear you should break; but don't you haggravate me by talking as if I was a hofficer."
"No, sir; please, sir--" stammered the boy.
"Hark at him!" growled the man, speaking to one of the stone gate-posts; and then, turning to the other, "Is he a hidgit?"
"No, that I'm not!" cried the boy, speaking indignantly now. "I wanted to say that I had no father and no mother."
"Then why didn't you say so at first?" growled the man. "But got no father nor mother?"
"No, s--no, no!" cried the boy.
"You're a horphan, mate?"
"Yes--Jack Jeens, didn't you say you were?"
"Right, boy; and that shows me straight and plain that you ain't a hidgit. Shake hands, mate. I'm just the same as you. I'm a horphan, too, on'y I don't pipe my eye like you do."
The boy held out his hand, which the next moment lay, looking dimly white, in the great, hairy paw which seized it.
"Leave crying to the women, my lad. Now then, what's the matter?"
The tears started to the boy's eye