ed at night as drunk as liquor could make him. He
was by many degrees too seasoned a vessel to meet with any disasters on
these occasions. His wicked old legs might take roundabout methods of
progression, but they never failed him; his wicked old eyes might see
double, but they always showed him the way home. Try as hard as they
might, the servants could never succeed in persuading him that he was
drunk; he always scorned the imputation. He even declined to admit the
idea privately into his mind, until he had first tested his condition by
an infallible criterion of his own.

It was his habit, in these cases of Bacchanalian emergency, to stagger
obstinately into his room on the ground-floor, to take the model-ship
out of the cupboard, and to try if he could proceed with the
never-to-be-completed employment of setting up the rigging. When he had
smashed the tiny spars, and snapped asunder the delicate ropes--then,
and not till then, the veteran admitted facts as they were, on the
authority of practical evidence. "Ay! ay!" he used to say confidentially
to himself, "the women are right. Drunk again, Mazey--drunk again!"
Having reached this discovery, it was his habit to wait cunningly in the
lower regions until the admiral was safe in his room, and then to ascend
in discreet list slippers to his post. Too wary to attempt getting into
the truckle-bed (which would have been only inviting the catastrophe of
a fall against his master's door), he always walked himself sober up and
down the passage. More than once Magdalen had peeped round the screen,
and had seen the old sailor unsteadily keeping his watch, and fancying
himself once more at his duty on board ship. "This is an uncommonly
lively vessel in a sea-way," he used to mutter under his breath, when
his legs took him down the passage in zigzag directions, or left him for
the moment studying the "Pints of the Compass" on his own system, with
his back against the wall. "A nasty night, mind you," he would maunder
on, taking another turn. "As dark as your pocket, and the wind heading
us again from the old quarter." On the next day old Mazey, like the
dogs, was kept downstairs in disgrace. On the day after, like the dogs
again, he was reinstated in his privileges; and another change was
introduced in the after-dinner formula. On entering the room, the
old sailor stopped short and made his excuses in this brief yet
comprehensive form of words, with his back against the door: "Ple