t in a ten-gun brig, and he used to put
his looking-glass on deck and his head through the cabin skylight when
he wanted to shave in the morning. Billy Blazes, who was a
quartermaster, was about as short and stout as the commander was tall
and thin. One day, just as the commander came on deck, and was standing
near the companion hatchway, seeing a squall coming along the water, he
shouted pretty sharply--

"`All hands, shorten sail!'

"Now Billy--as I take it for granted that Snatchblock is right in saying
it was he--was below, doing something or other, and guessing that he
would be late if he came up the main hatchway, he bolted through the
gunroom passage, thinking that no one would see him, and up he sprang by
the companion hatchway. At that moment the commander turned round, and,
receiving Billy's head in the pit of his stomach, was doubled up, and
sent sprawling over on the deck, the pain preventing him from seeing who
had done the deed. Billy did not, you may be sure, stop to apologise;
but up the rigging he sprang, before the commander or any of the
officers knew who it was, and you may depend upon it he did not inform
them. His messmates kept his secret, and it was not till the brig was
paid off that the truth slipped out."

"I remember the same system as that you speak of being carried on in a
ship I once served in," observed Norris. "The first lieutenant used to
put down the name of the last man off the lower deck on a slip of paper,
and at the end of three months he took out the slip, and counted who had
been most frequently guilty, and they were invariably punished.
However, as several good men got punished, the system became very
unpopular, and as many deserted in consequence it was given up."

On this Tom told some of the stories about black-listing which he had
heard from Admiral Triton.

"I once served under a captain in that respect like Jerry Hawthorne,"
said Higson. "Not that he was in general severe, I must own; but he
used to come down pretty sharply on us midshipmen occasionally. We were
in the Mediterranean, and brought up in Malta harbour. I and two other
youngsters were greatly addicted to fishing. This the captain did not
approve of, as he said that the bait and lines dirtied the ship's side,
and so he issued an order against it. Still fish we would, whenever we
had a chance, and we three, knowing that the captain had gone on shore,
were thus engaged one day, when he unexpectedl