luxury of a fresh-water wash!"--for salt
water really will not clean one, and the only way to get a fresh-water
wash at sea is to save out of one's limited allowance. We had done this,
to the extent of two-thirds of a pailful, as we approached Guiana, and
had been glad enough all to soap in the same bucket (tossing for turns)
and rinse off with clean sea-water, but real "tubs" were a treat indeed!

I had had mine, and, clothed in a white suit, nearly as much too big
for me as the old miser's funeral gloves, was reposing in a very easy
chair, when Dennis and his friend began to dress for the dance. The
lieutenant was in his bedroom, which opened to the left out of the
sitting-room where I sat, and Dennis was tubbing in another room
similarly placed on the right. Every door and window was open to catch
what air was stirring, and they shouted to each other, over my head, so
to speak, while the lieutenant's body-servant ran backwards and forwards
from one to the other. He was, like so many soldiers, an Irishman, and
having been with his master when he visited the O'Moores, he treated
Dennis with the utmost respect, and me with civility for Dennis' sake.
He was waiting on his master when the lieutenant shouted,

"Dennis! what's your length, you lanky fellow?"

"Six foot two by the last notch on the front door. I stood in my socks,
and the squire measured it with his tape."

"Well, there's half-an-inch between us if he's right; but that tape's
been measuring the O'Moores from the days of St. Patrick, and I've a
notion it has shrunk with age. I think my clothes will do for you."

"Thank you, thank you, Willie! You're very good."

In a few minutes O'Brien came out with his arms full of clothes, and
pursued by his master's voice.

"O'Brien's bringing you the things; can he go in? Be quick and finish
off that fresh-water business, old fellow, and get into them. I promised
not to be late."

I tried to read a newspaper, but the cross-fire of talk forbade anything
like attention.

"Was ye wanting me, sorr?"

"No, no. Never mind me, O'Brien. Attend to Mr. O'Moore. Can he manage
with those things?"

"He can, sorr. He looks illigant," replied O'Brien from the right-hand
chamber. We all laughed, and Dennis began to sing:

"Oh, once we were illigant people,
Though we now live in cabins of mud;
And the land that ye see from the steeple,
Belonged to us a