Tales for the Marines

yez a simple tale I had from a cousin o' mine, one Dinnis Lynch, iv the Gun- snatchers. Boots! CHORUS. Spurs! The Beauty. Me cousin Dinnis, in his youth, was clerk in a shippin' firm at Canton, an' the adventures I'm to be repatin' befell him on a voyage from that poort to Simoda, in Japan. The Wee Mon. Was yer cousin struck dead for tellin' the truth, Weelyum ? The Beauty. Bite yer tongue, me Donegal changeling, for fear lest yez knock yer nose against annythin' harrd. Me cousin Dinnis wasn'tsthruck dead for spakin' the trut', but his ind was no less remarkable, he breaken' a blood-vessel through tryin' to tell a lie. The Wee Man. Ye're in great danger the nicht, yersel'. The Beauty. I was afther sayin', when I was intherrupted be the brayin' iv a Donegal donkey, that me cousin, havin' acquired some knowledge o' the hathinish babble hwich passes in China for a langwidge, was sint out on a schooner as a kind of a supercargo. Boots ! Chorus. Spurs I The Beauty. 'Twas a long voyage, an' from first to last the divvle took an intherest in ut, by the same token that the capten was a North of Ireland man, so that no better might happen um. An' two days out in the Chaney Sea they was shtruck wid a toiphoon, hwich shpun the owld tub round and round like a juggler's dish, an' after rippen' the masts out iv her, and fillin' her full o' leaks till the fish was shwimmin' about 'tween decks, it wint off wid a yawp, as much as to say, " The back - o' ...