efore his
marine majesty.

"Take 'em below. I'll speak to 'em when I wants 'em," said the king in
his gruff voice. And forthwith we were hauled off together, and shut
down in the cable tier.

One by one we were picked out, just as the ogre Fi-fo-fum in the
story-book picked out his prisoners to eat them. There was a
considerable noise of shouting and laughing and thumping on the decks,
all of which I understood when it came to my turn.

After three others had disappeared, I was dragged out of our dark prison
and brought into the presence of Neptune, who was seated on a throne
composed of a coil of ropes, with his court, a very motley assemblage,
arranged round him. In front of him his valet sat on a bucket with two
assistants on either side, who, the moment I appeared, jumped up and
pinioned my arms, and made me sit down on another bucket in front of
their chief.

"Now, young 'un, you haven't got a beard, but you may have one some day
or other, so it's as well to begin to shave in time," exclaimed Neptune,
nodding his head significantly to his valet.

The valet on this jumping up, seized my head between his knees, and
began, in spite of my struggles, covering my face with tar. If I
attempted to cry out, the tar-brush was instantly shoved into my mouth,
to the great amusement of all hands. When he had done what he called
lathering my face, he began to scrape it unmercifully with his notched
iron hoop; and if I struggled, he would saw it backwards and forwards
over my face.

When this process had continued for some time, Neptune offered me a box
of infallible ointment, to cure all the diseases of life. It was a lump
of grease; and his valet, seizing it, rubbed my face all over with it.
He then scrubbed me with a handful of oakum, which effectually took off
the tar. Being now pronounced shaved and clean, to my great horror Mrs
Neptune cried out in a voice so gruff, that one might have supposed she
had attempted to swallow the best-bower anchor, and that it had stuck in
her throat, "Now my pretty Master Green, let me give you a buss, to
welcome you to the Polar Seas. Don't be coy now, and run off."

This I was attempting to do, and with good reason, for Mrs Neptune's
cap-frill was stuck so full of iron spikes, that I should have had a
good chance of having my eyes put out if she had succeeded in her
intentions; so off I set, running round the deck, to the great amusement
of the crew, with Mrs Neptune after