St. Paul's Church-yard; and pretty tight I keep all my
hatches battened down, and a sharp pair of eyes in the crow's-nest--for
to have them in the foretop won't do there. It was strictly on duty that
I went up--the duty of getting a fresh stock of powder, for guns are not
much good without it; and I had written three times, without answer or
powder. But it seems that my letters were going the rounds, and would
turn up somewhere, when our guns were stormed, without a bit of stuff to
make answer."

"Ah, that's the way they do everything now!" interrupted Mr. Twemlow. "I
thought you had been very quiet lately; but I did not know what a good
reason you had. We might all have been shot, and you could not have
fired a salute, to inform the neighbourhood!"

"Well, never mind," replied the Captain, calmly; "I am not complaining,
for I never do so. Young men might; but not old hands, whose duty it is
to keep their situation in life. Well, you must understand that the air
of London always makes me hungry. There are so many thousands of people
there that you can't name a time when there is nobody eating, and this
makes a man from the country long to help them. Anyhow, I smelled roast
mutton at a place where a little side street comes up into the Strand;
and although it was scarcely half past twelve, it reminded me of Mrs.
Stubbard. So I called a halt, and stood to think upon a grating, and the
scent became flavoured with baked potatoes. This is always more than I
can resist, after all the heavy trials of a chequered life. So I pushed
the door open, and saw a lot of little cabins, right and left of a fore
and aft gangway, all rigged up alike for victualling. Jemima, I told you
all about it. You describe it to the Rector and Mrs. Twemlow."

"Don't let us trouble Mrs. Stubbard," said the host; "I know the sort of
thing exactly, though I don't go to that sort of place myself."

"No, of course you don't. And I was a little scared at first, for
there was sawdust enough to soak up every drop of my blood, if they had
pistolled me. Mrs. Twemlow, I beg you not to be alarmed. My wife has
such nerves that I often forget that all ladies are not like her. Now
don't contradict me, Mrs. Stubbard. Well, sir, I went to the end of this
cockpit--if you like to call it so--and got into the starboard berth,
and shouted for a ration of what I had smelled outside. And although
it was far from being equal to its smell--as the character is of
everything