yellow border, and many yellow spots withal, where the colour had been discharged by slops of vinegar, hot tea, &c, &c.; a sack of potatoes stood in one corner, and the shelves all round, and close over our heads, were stuffed with plates, glasses, quadrants, knives and forks, loaves of sugar, dirty stockings and shirts, and still fouler table-cloths, small tooth-combs, and ditto large, clothes brushes and shoe brushes, cocked-hats, dirks, German flutes, mahogany writing-desks, a plate of salt butter, and some two or three pairs of naval half-boots.  A single candle served to make darkness visible, and the stench had nearly overpowered me.

The reception I met with tended in no way to relieve these horrible impressions.  A black man, with no other dress than a dirty check shirt and trousers, not smelling of amber, stood within the door, ready to obey all and any one of the commands with which he was loaded.  The smell of the towel he held in his hand, to wipe the plates and glasses with, completed my discomfiture; and I fell sick upon the seat nearest at me.  Recovering from this, without the aid of any “ministering angel,” I contracted the pupils of my eyes, and ventured to look around me.  The first who met my gaze, was my recent foe; he bore the marks of contention by having his eye bound up with brown paper and a dirty silk pocket-handkerchief; the other was quickly turned on me; and, with a savage and brutal countenance, he swore and denounced the severest vengeance on me for what I had done.  In this, he was joined by another ill-looking fellow, with large whiskers.

I shall not repeat the elegant philippics with which I was greeted.  Suffice it to say that I found all the big ones against me, and the little ones neuter; the caterer supposing I had received suitable admonition for my future guidance, and that I was completely bound over to keep the peace—­turned all the youngsters out of the berth.  “As for you, Mr Fistycuff,” said he, addressing himself to me, “you may walk off with the rest of the gang, so make yourself scarce, like the Highlander’s breeches.”

The boys all obeyed the command in silence, and I was not sorry to follow them.  As I went out he added, “So, Mr Rumbusticus, you can obey orders, I see, and it is well for you; for I had a biscuit ready to shy at your head.”  This affront, after all I had suffered, I was forced to pocket; but I could not understand what the admiral could mean, when he said that people went to sea “to learn manners.”

I soon made acquaintance with the younger set of my messmates, and we retreated to the forecastle as the only part of the ship suitable to the nature of the conversation we intended to hold.  After one hour’s deliberation, and notwithstanding it was the first night I had ever been on board a ship, I was unanimously elected leader of this little band.  I became the William Tell of the party, as having been the first to resist the tyranny of the oldsters, and especially