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“What did the shark say, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline.

“He said: ‘Take a bar’l full, an’ welcome, Mister Button; an’ it’s wishful I am I had a drop of the crathur to offer you this fine marnin’.’ Thin he popped his head under his fin and went aslape agin; leastwise, I heard him snore.”

Emmeline nearly always “Mr Buttoned” her friend; sometimes she called him “Mr Paddy.” As for Dick, it was always “Paddy,” pure and simple. Children have etiquettes of their own.

It must often strike landsmen and landswomen that the most terrible experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence of privacy. It seems an outrage on decency on the part of Providence to herd people together so. But, whoever has gone through the experience will bear me out that in great moments of life like this the human mind enlarges, and things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out there, face to face with eternity.

If so with grown-up people, how much more so with this old shell-back and his two charges?