elow.
Handstone, though a martinet, was a gentleman; and as he felt a great
interest in the young officers in the ship, so he took much pains in
the instruction and improvement of them. He frequently expostulated
with me on the great impropriety of my conduct; my answer invariably
was, that I was as sensible of it as he could be, but that I could
not help it; that I deserved all the punishment I met with, and threw
myself entirely on his mercy. He used frequently to call me over to
the weather side of the deck, when he would converse with me on any
topic which he thought might interest or amuse me. Finding I was
tolerably well read in history, he asked my opinion, and gave me his
own with great good sense and judgment; but such was the irresistible
weight of my eyelids, that I used, when he was in the midst of a long
dissertation, to slip down the gangway-ladder and leave him to finish
his discourses to the wind.

Now, when this occurred, I was more severely punished than on any
other occasion; for, to the neglect of duty, I added contempt both of
his rank and the instruction he was offering to me. His wrath was also
considerably increased when he only discovered my departure by the
tittering of the other midshipmen and the quarter-master at the conn.

One evening, I completed my disgrace with him, though a great deal
might be said in my own favour. He had sent me to the fore-topmast
head, at seven o'clock in the morning, and very unfeelingly, or
forgetfully, kept me there the whole day. When he went off deck to his
dinner, I came down into the top, made a bed for myself in one of the
top-gallant studding sails, and, desiring the man who had the look-out
to call me before the lieutenant was likely to come on deck, I very
quietly began to prepare a sacrifice to my favourite deity, Somnus;
but as the look-out man did not see the lieutenant come up, I was
caught napping just at dusk, when the lieutenant came on deck, and
did me the honour to remember where he had left me. Looking at the
fore-topmast head, he called me down.

Like Milton's devils, who were "found sleeping by one they dread,"
up I sprung, and regained my perch by the topsail-tie, supposing,
or rather hoping, that he would not see me before the mast, in the
obscurity of the evening; but he was too lynx-eyed, and had not
presence of mind enough _not_ to see what he should not have seen. He
called to the three men in the top, and inquired where I was? They