our stations.

"Ay," said he, giving me a wink; "and I think I can put a spoke in their
wheel to help them along."

It was near twelve o'clock, the ship being put about, the decks cleared
up, and grog served out preparatory to dinner, when the boatswain made
his appearance before the carpenter, his anger in no way appeased.

"What's that you were saying about me, Mr Ichabod Chissel, I should
like to know?" he exclaimed, in an irate tone.

"Why, Mr Trundle, no man likes to have his ferocity (veracity?)
doubted, and if you goes for to affirm that I'm a liar--I don't mince
matters, you'll understand me,--why, all I've got to say is, that you're
the biggest speaker of untruths as ever was born, whoever the mother was
who got you. Put that in your pipe, Mr Trundle, and smoke it."

This most insulting of all remarks increased tenfold the boatswain's
rage, and the two would have come instantly to fisticuffs, but that,
fortunately, at that moment the order to pipe to dinner was given. The
boatswain's call came into requisition, and all hands, except the watch
on deck, were soon busily employed in discussing the contents of a cask
of beef, boasting of but a small proportion of fat or lean and a
considerable superfluity of bone.

Now it happened to be Dicky Sharpe's watch on deck while dinner was
going on, and at one o'clock, being relieved, he came down to his own
repast, which he was not long in discussing. While he sat turning a
large rib-bone over and over, in disgust at finding so little meat on
it, and waiting for the boy to clear away, the boatswain, whose cabin
could be seen from the berth on the larboard side, roused up from a nap,
and began to contemplate his visage in his glass, to discover if he
looked in any way as if he had been asleep. It must be understood that
it is contrary to the principles of a boatswain worthy of the rank ever
to require sleep. He would consider himself disgraced in the eyes of
the whole crew, if he were caught taking a wink. A regular-built
boatswain is often on deck from half-past three in the morning till
eleven at night, and should it be bad weather, or from any other cause,
frequently two or three times during the night also; and as to his
cabin, he merely looks in occasionally and keeps his donnage there.

Now, to do him justice, Trundle was a thoroughgoing boatswain. While he
was rubbing his eyes, to get the sleepiness out of them, pulling up his
shirt-collar, and brushi