CHIPS FROM A NAVAL OFFICER’S LOG.

I hardly know whether I ought to call the short story I am going to tell you “a chip” from my log, or not; for this reason, that it did not occur in my own experience, but was related to me. However, like all my other chips, you may rely on its truth. I can vouch for the fact that I am going to mention, and you may rely on whatever you find in my log, for old sailors have seen too many wonderful things that have really happened to go out of their way to take in their listeners by trying to impose upon them.

If you want wonderful things that never happened; if you want frightful scenes that never could have occurred; if you want battles written by people that scarcely know the stem from the stern of a ship; that know nothing of the Queen’s service, and precious little of the Queen’s English, then you must go to “Admiral Dick; or, the Death Calm;” or, “Stick-at-nothing Tom; or, the Gory Capstan,” or some such rubbish as you see advertised, and alas! see read. Now, I won’t say more about this now, except that the boys and girls who care for my chips, and take any interest in them, will find them truthful and harmless, neither of which qualities do those exciting and absurd tales possess.

Well, when I was serving in the “Conqueror” frigate, there was a midshipman who was a Turk by birth. He was the only Turk I ever knew in Her Majesty’s service; but this youngster was not a bad sort of a fellow in his way. ’Twas from him I heard this short story, with which he was personally familiar. In a former ship in which he sailed, there was a passenger who had made some money as a milkman at Constantinople, which he kept in a bag in his cabin, and was very fond of retiring there and counting it over. Now, the captain had a pet monkey that used to watch this man, and seeing him so often going to this bag, he thought there must be something in it worth examining; so one day he watched his opportunity, ran into the man’s cabin, seized the bag, and climbed with it up to the mainsail-yard. The man soon missed his bag, and soon found out where it was gone, for the monkey began taking out the gold coins, and throwing them alternately on the deck and into the sea.

Those that fell on the deck the poor man greedily picked up, but the half of them that went overboard, of course, were lost. He did not intend putting up with his loss so quietly, for he held the captain responsible, as it was his monkey that had robbed him.

Nothing could be done until the vessel got into port, when the man had the captain brought before the Kadi, or magistrate, to recover the value of the coins lost.

“You were a milkman?” said the Kadi.

“I was, sir,” replied the man.

“And, pray, will you tell me how much water you used to put with your milk?”

The man was much confused, and replied, he would rather not tell; but as he saw the magistrate was determined to know, he at last confessed he used to mix one-half.

“Very well, then,” said the Kadi, “it appears to me that only one-half of what you earned was honestly yours. You have got, therefore, all that was your due, and this monkey has only thrown into the water the amount of profit you dishonestly got out of the water.”

Thus, judgment was given against the man, and every one but he felt how just it was.