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Your eye is like a hawk, by jingo!" Mick scratched his head in father's way, puzzled to explain his keenness of vision. "Faith, sor," he said at length, "it moost 'a bin tryin' to say if I could say any thin' good turn up afore I jined the sarvice, sure; whin me fayther wor a blissid Oitalian organ-grinder an' none of us had nothin' to ate, bedad!"
"Me fayther came over here harvestin' last summer, sor, an' turned organ-grinder; an' now, sure, he's an Oitalian." "Was it him that signed this paper?" asked the master-at-arms, when he was able to control his speech again after a second burst of merriment at the Irish boy's droll way of expressing himself, and comical look.
"Donovan, sor," promptly answered my friend the ragged boy without any covering to his feet, whom, of course, he was addressing. "Me name's Mick Donovan, sor." "An Irishman, eh?" "No, sor; Oi'm an Oitalian, yer honour." The master-at-arms burst out laughing, for really the devil-me-care chap's brogue was strong enough to have hung a kettle full of potatoes on it.
"Me fayther s'id, faith, as how the Donovans wor kings ov Cark at one toime, Tom!" "Why," I rejoined, giving him a twister, "you told the `Jaunty' when you came aboard the Saint Vincent that time to join, that your father was an `Oitalian!" "Stow thet, Tom," said he with a grin, digging me in the ribs, much to the amusement of one of the Irish girls who was near us, at whom Mick winked.
To begin with, it was `pay-day, the whole ship's company marching up to the paymaster in turn at the temporary office he had rigged up al fresco, as Mick's `Oitalian' friends would say, on the upper deck, and receiving each his weekly pay; the boys being allowed, those of the first-class a shilling, and those of the second sixpence, for pocket- money, the balance being saved up to their account or else forwarded to their parents.
"Faith, if I had ye in the ould counthry," answered back Mick, not for a moment nonplussed, "I'd soon show ye how an Oitalian of the raal sort, loike me fayther, sor, lives! Bedad, it's praties an' crame we hev fur tay, sure, ivvery day in the wake!"
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