arged; and at all times and seasons there he was exerting it. If
a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky, down Mark tumbled into the
cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms, or
half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a basket,
or something animate or inanimate, that he thought would be the better
for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day
tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl
into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare spars, and try to eat,
there, in the centre of the group, was Mr Tapley, handing about salt
beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the
children's provisions with his pocketknife, for their greater ease and
comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some
roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters
to their friends at home for people who couldn't write, or cracking
jokes with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging,
half-drowned, from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or
other; but always doing something for the general entertainment. At
night, when the cooking-fire was lighted on the deck, and the driving
sparks that flew among the rigging, and the clouds of sails, seemed to
menace the ship with certain annihilation by fire, in case the elements
of air and water failed to compass her destruction; there, again, was Mr
Tapley, with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up to his elbows,
doing all kinds of culinary offices; compounding the strangest dishes;
recognized by every one as an established authority; and helping all
parties to achieve something which, left to themselves, they never could
have done, and never would have dreamed of. In short, there never was a
more popular character than Mark Tapley became, on board that noble and
fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, the Screw; and he attained at last to
such a pitch of universal admiration, that he began to have grave doubts
within himself whether a man might reasonably claim any credit for being
jolly under such exciting circumstances.

'If this was going to last,' said Tapley, 'there'd be no great
difference as I can perceive, between the Screw and the Dragon. I
never am to get credit, I think. I begin to be afraid that the Fates is
determined to make the world easy to me.'

'Well, Mark,' said Martin, near whose berth he had ruminated