is work thoroughly, and the
cooking utensils looked much cleaner than when he entered on his duties.

In a few minutes the tea was ready, and as soon as the skipper tasted it
he made a grimace, and exclaimed, 'Beastly wash!--Do you hear?' he
exclaimed, finding that Charlie did not speak. 'It's wash!'

'It is made in exactly the same way as the other tea you have had during
the day,' Charlie declared.

'Then I must have drunk wash before. But I won't drink this. Here,
Chinee, you drink it.'

'Me no want any, skipper,' Ping Wang answered.

'Don't want it, eh? What does that matter? Drink it at once.'

Ping Wang shook his head, and the skipper immediately flung the contents
of his mug full in the Chinaman's face. The tea was very hot, and with a
cry of pain Ping Wang ran at his tormentor. Stepping backwards quickly,
to avoid him, the skipper stumbled over the weather-board at the
entrance to the galley, and fell heavily on to the deck.

The mate, who had been pacing the deck, ran to pick him up. 'What's the
matter, skipper?' he asked.

'That Chinee has knocked me down,' the skipper declared.

'He did nothing of the kind,' Charlie declared, and related to the mate
exactly what happened.

'You'd better get an hour or two's sleep before we haul,' the mate said
to the skipper, and, taking his arm, led him away.

'I think we had better turn in also,' Ping Wang said, and Charlie at
once went forward with him.

The other men were already asleep. The ventilators were all closed, and
the foc's'le was so close and stuffy that Charlie thought, at first,
that he would have to go on deck again. But, being very tired, he
determined to stay where he was, and clambered into his bunk. He slept
soundly, in spite of the bad air, until Ping Wang aroused him. It was a
quarter to eleven, and the men were donning their oilskins, with a view
to hauling.

'You had better put the kettle on,' Ping Wang said to Charlie; 'all
hands will want tea before they turn in again.'

Charlie, wearing his oilskins, went to the galley at once. As he passed
along the deck he shivered, for a breeze had sprung up, and the air
struck cold, after the stuffiness of the foc's'le.

(_Continued on page 226._)

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S HEAD GARDENER.

'We must not forget the gardener,' says a visitor, describing Walmer
Castle at the time when Wellington was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
This gardener, a fine-looking, elderly man, was at the