into my room."

From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, that his
room was at my elbow; but no such thing--we had to ascend a long, and
not over-clean staircase, to the fourth floor, before we were shown
into a miserable little double-bedded room. So soon as we had entered,
the lieutenant shut the door.

"Tom," said he, "I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore I applied
for leave to bring you with me; but I must expose you to some danger,
and I will allow, not altogether in a very creditable way either. You
must enact the spy for a short space."

I did not like the notion, certainly, but I had little time for
consideration.

"Here," he continued--"here is a bundle." He threw it on the floor.
"You must rig in the clothes it contains, and make your way into the
celebrated crimp-shop in the neighborhood, and pick up all the
information you can regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove,
especially with regard to the ten seamen who have run from the West
Indiaman we left below. You know the Admiral has forbidden pressing at
Cork, so you must contrive to frighten the blue jackets down to Cove,
by representing yourself as an apprentice of one of the merchant
vessels, who had run from his indentures, and that you had narrowly
escaped from a press-gang this very night _here_."

I made no scruples, but forthwith arrayed myself in the slops contained
in the bundle; in a pair of shag trousers, red flannel shirt, coarse
blue cloth jacket, and no waistcoat.

"Now," said Mr. Treenail, "stick a quid of tobacco in your cheek, and
take the cockade out of your hat; or stop, leave it, and ship this
striped woollen night cap--so--and come along with me."

We left the house, and walked half a mile down the _Quay_.

Presently we arrived before a kind of low grog-shop--a bright lamp was
flaring in the breeze at the door, one of the panes of the glass of it
being broken.

Before I entered, Mr. Treenail took me to one side--"Tom, Tom Cringle,
you must go into this crimp-shop; pass yourself off for an apprentice
of the _Guava_, bound for Trinidad, the ship that arrived just as we
started, and pick up all the knowledge you can regarding the
whereabouts of the men, for we are, as you know, cruelly ill manned,
and must replenish as we best may." I entered the house, after having
agreed to rejoin my superior officer so soon as I considered I had
obtained my object. I rapped at the inner door, in which