econds and
reappeared clean shaven. So many doublings and devices were required to
get to sea with an unseaworthy ship and a captain that was "wanted." Nor
might even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a
public character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of
indulgence as one of Tom's engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides,
had been a yacht before: and it came the more natural to allow her
still some of the dangerous liberties of her old employment.

A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured with
patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom with rude
shelves. And the life they led in that anomalous schooner was no less
curious than herself. Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied
staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant
Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of
their kind, and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had
occasional moments of revolt, and increased the ordinary by a few
haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But Hemstead
grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the moment, and there was
underneath a real and general acquiescence in these hardships. For
besides onions and potatoes, the _Currency Lass_ may be said to have
gone to sea without stores. She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and fortune. It was
upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own granary. They dined
upon their future profits; and every scanty meal was so much in the
savings bank.

Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at least no
dangerous, lack of discipline. Wicks was the only sailor on board, there
was none to criticise; and besides, he was so easy-going, and so
merry-minded, that none could bear to disappoint him. Carthew did his
best, partly for the love of doing it, partly for love of the captain;
Amalu was a willing drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
occasion with a will. Tommy's department was the trade and traderoom; he
would work down in the hold or over the shelves of the cabin, till the
Sydney dandy was unrecognisable; come up at last, draw a bucket of
sea-water, bathe, change, and lie down on deck over a big sheaf of
Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's
"History of Civilisation," the standard work selected for that cruise.
In the latter case