"Do you expect your mother by it?" replied he.

"O no! but I expect my uniforms--I only wear these bottle-greens until
they come."

"And pray what ship are you going to join?"

"The _Die-a-maid_--Captain Thomas Kirkwall Savage."

"The _Diomede_--I say, Robinson, a'n't that the frigate in which the
midshipmen had four dozen apiece for not having pipe-clayed their weekly
accounts on the Saturday?"

"To be sure it is," replied the other; "why the captain gave a youngster
five dozen the other day for wearing a scarlet watch-riband."

"'Pon my soul I pity you: you'll be fagged to death; for there's only
three midshipmen in the ship now--all the rest ran away. Didn't they,
Robinson?"

"There's only two left now:--for poor Matthews died of fatigue. He was
worked all day, and kept watch all night for six weeks, and one morning
he was found dead upon his chest."

"God bless my soul!" cried I, "and yet, on shore, they say he is such a
kind man to his midshipmen."

"Yes," replied Robinson, "he spreads that report everywhere. Come, sit
down with us and take a glass of grog; it will keep your spirits up."

I am sorry to state that the midshipmen made me very tipsy that evening.
I don't recollect being put to bed, but I found myself there the next
morning with a dreadful head-ache, and a very confused recollection of
what had passed. I was very much shocked at my having so soon forgotten
the injunctions of my parents, and was making vows never to be so
foolish again, when in came the midshipman who had been so kind to me
the night before. "Come, Mr Bottlegreen," he bawled out, alluding, I
suppose, to the colour of my clothes, "rouse and bitt. There's the
captain's coxswain waiting for you below. By the powers, you're in a
pretty scrape for what you did last night!"

"Did last night!" replied I, astonished. "Why, does the captain know
that I was tipsy?"

"I think you took devilish good care to let him know it when you were at
the theatre."

"At the theatre! was I at the theatre?"

"To be sure you were. You would go, do all we could to prevent you,
though you were as drunk as David's sow. Your captain was there with
the admiral's daughters. You called him a tyrant, and snapped your
fingers at him. Why, don't you recollect? You told him that you did
not care a fig for him."

"O dear! O dear! what shall I do? what shall I do?" cried I.

"Upon my honour, I'm sorry--very sorry indeed," replied the
mid