mood,
and grinning all over his face in consequence, "it wor the Cape shmoke
that did it. Sure, it obfusticated me, sor, entirely!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

WE JOIN THE ADMIRAL AT SINGAPORE.

"Cape smoke?" said I, inquiringly, to Mr Stormcock, who happened to
come up the hatchway on to the main deck as the doctor was thus
cross-examining the ex-corporal of marines outside the sick bay, where
poor Macan was now doing "sentry-go" after his reduction to the ranks,
to make his humiliation the more complete. "What is that? It can't be
real smoke, I suppose!"

The master's mate laughed.

"Smoke, eh, youngster?" he repeated in his ironical way, being the
driest old stick we had in the gunroom and certainly, according to
Larkyns, a judge of considerable experience of the article under
discussion. "Bless you, it's the most rotgut stuff any fellow ever put
in his inside, and only a Dutchman could have invented it! I can tell
you it's a liquor that's best left alone. Take my advice, Vernon, and
don't you have anything to do with it!"

"I won't," I replied. "Have you ever tasted it, Mr Stormcock?"

He looked at me hard, thinking at first that I meant to chaff him; but
seeing that I asked the question in perfect good faith, without any
intention of alluding to his reported "little weakness," he proceeded to
answer me, truthfully enough.

"By jingo! youngster, I can tell you, I speak from my own knowledge," he
said, as he turned away to go forwards, "I had too much of it once when
I was at the Cape before and it gave me the shakes next morning so badly
that my teeth rattled like a horse's jaws when chewing a hammer!"

This expression amused me very much, for I had never heard previously of
a horse indulging in that species of diet; so, I went up on the
quarter-deck to take my watch with a broad smile on my face, which
attracted Mr Jellaby's notice at once, as he had a keen relish for a
joke.

"Hullo, youngster, you're grinning like a Cheshire cat eating green
cheese!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you have heard the news, and that
makes you so chirpy?"

This made me all agog in a moment, with the expectation of something
very exciting coming, and I answered his question in the Irish fashion,
by asking another with much eagerness.

"What news, sir? I haven't heard of any."

"Why, the redcoats belonging to the garrison at Cape Town are going to
give a grand ball in our honour, and of course all the gunroom office