e one of our best shots, Mr Gadgett complimenting him on
having the sharpest eye on board the brig, my chum often, when acting as
Number 1, who you must know invariably sights the gun, succeeding in
smashing our improvised target all to pieces.

"How is it, Donovan," asked the gunner on one of these occasions, "you
have such a steady aim? Why, boy, you haven't been at it very long.
Your eye is like a hawk, by jingo!"

Mick scratched his head in father's way, puzzled to explain his keenness
of vision.

"Faith, sor," he said at length, "it moost 'a bin tryin' to say if I
could say any thin' good turn up afore I jined the sarvice, sure; whin
me fayther wor a blissid Oitalian organ-grinder an' none of us had
nothin' to ate, bedad!"

"By jingo!" exclaimed Mr Gadgett, smiling for once, for I never
previously saw the slightest change of muscle on his thin, weather-
beaten, grey-whiskered face, "you'll do!"

Before we came back again from this cruise, we had a bout of bad weather
while knocking about in the Channel, which brought back to my mind the
yarn Larrikins told the first evening I passed on board the _Saint
Vincent_, in order to distract my attention while he was rigging up my
hammock so that it would come down by the run--of seas that were
`mountings 'igh,' and winds that blew the `'air off 'is 'ead!'

I took at the time, it may be recollected, Master Larrikins' tale with a
very good pinch of the proverbial salt, believing he only intended to
`pull my leg'; but when on the present occasion the brig began to labour
heavily and the green seas, rolling over from the open sea beyond
Ushant, the wind having come on to blow a regular stiff sou'-wester,
topped our bulwarks and made a clean sweep of the deck, I thought
possibly the old joker Larrikins, who had left the training-ship long
ere this and was serving as an ordinary seaman on a foreign station,
might not have been `stretching' to such an extent as I had at the time
imagined.

The little brig, however, was a staunch sea boat, having braved much
worse weather than we now experienced; and, being well handled by our
commander, who was a sailor every inch of him, we ran before the gale
round the easternmost end of the Isle of Wight and snugly brought up
under the lee of Saint Helens, where we dropped both our anchors,
remaining in this sheltered roadstead until the weather broke, when we
returned to Portsmouth.

So far, everything had gone well with me since I