The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1873-03-27
Il Young Hero!

@Ay. ay, sir they're smart seamen
enough, no doubt, them Dalmatians,
and reason good, too, seein' they man
half the Astrian navy; but they amt
got the seasonin' of an Englishman,
put it how yer will !''
I am standing on the upper deck of
the Austrian Lloyd steamer, looking
my last upon pyramidal Jatfa, as it
rises up in terrace after terrace of stern
gray masonry against the lustrOus
evening sky, with fOam-tipped break
ers at its feet. Beside me, with his
elbow on the handrail, and his short
pipe between his teeth, lounges the
stalwGrt chief-engineer, as thorough
an Englishman as if he had not spent
tWo-thirds of his life abroad, and de-
lighted to get hold Of listener who
as he phrases it, "has been about
bit"
mo; they amt got an English
mans seasonin'," he continues, pur-
suing his criticism of the DaImatian
seamen "and what's more, they
amt got an Englishman's pluck
neither, not when it comes to a real
serape."
fCan no one but an Englishman
have any pluck, then ?' asked /,
laughing.
"Well, I won't just go for to say
that O'cOurse q man as as q man 'ull
have pluck in him all the world over.
I've seed a Frencher tackle q shark to
save his mess-mate /; and I've seed a
ROOshan stand to his gun arter every
man in the battery, barrin' himself,
had been blowed all to smash. But,
if yer come to that, the pluckiest fel.
Ter as ever l seed warn't q man at alln
"What was he, then pa woman ?'
mo, nor that neither; though,
mark ye, don't go for to say as how
women amt got pluck enough too,
some on 'em at least. My old 'OOman,
now, saved my life from a lubber Of a
Portigee as was just a-goin' to stick
knife into me, when she cracked his
nut with hsndspike. (You can hear
her spin the yarn yourself, if you likes
to pay US visit when we get to Con-
stantInople.) But this un as I'm a.
talkin' on was a little lad not much
bigger N Tom Thumb, only with 8
sperrit of his own as 'ud hai bloWed
up a man-o'war almost. Would yer
like to hear about it?n
eagerly assent and the narrator,
knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
folds his brawny arms upon the top of
the rail, and commences as follows !:
"'BOut three years ago, afore got
this berth as Pm in now, l was second
engineer aboard a Liverpool steamer
bound for New York. There'd been
q lot of extra cargo sent down just at
/ the last minute, and we'd had no end
of job stOWin' it away, and that ran
US late o'startinI so that, altogether
as you may think, the cap'n Warnit
/ altogether in the sweetest temper in
the world, nor the mate neither as
/ for the chief-engineer, he was an easy
| gOin' sort O'chap as nothini on earth
/ could put out. But on the mornin' OF
the third day ont from Liverpool, he
cum down to me in a precious hurry,
lOokin' as if sOnsethiI' had put him out
pretty considerably.
"Tom," says he, "what dye think
Blest if we amt found a stowaway."
THAT'S the name, you know, sir, as
we gives to chaps as hides theirselVes
aboard outWRrd-bOund vessels, and
gets carried out unbeknown to every
bodY.)
''The dickens you have :" says I.
VINO Is ne, ana Where dId yer nnC
MIN ?n
"Well, we found him slowed paway
among the casks for'ard and ten tC
one we'd never ha' twigged him al
all, If the shippers dog hadn't shifted
him out and begun barkin'. Stitch 9
little mite as he is too I could almost
put him in my baecypOuch, poor little
beggsr but he looks to be good
plucky un for all that"
"I didn't wait to hear no more, but
up on deck like q sky-roeket and
there I did see q sight, and no mis-
take. Every man Jack o. the crew,
and what few passengers we had
aboard, was all in a ring on the
fo'c'stle, and in the middle stood the
first-mate, lookin' as black as thunder.
Right in front of him, lOOkin' q reg'-
lar mite among all them big fellers,
was a little bit o. lad not ten years
Outraged as a scareerOw, but with
bright curly hair, and a bonnie little
face o. his own, if it hadn't been 80
woful thin and pale. BVt, bless yer
soul to see the way that little chap
held his head up, and looked about