e once having a whiff behind the windlass
bitts; "for, let me tell you, if you're nabbed by me or any one else at
it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won't
let it go further now, you'll be brought up on the quarter-deck and
receive punishment."

The ship's corporal's advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out
of the other, like my chum's remonstrance; and one fine day I was
`brought up all standing' in the very act of committing the same
offence.

Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who
had just been promoted to the police force of the ship, a young seaman
whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course,
to show himself especially smart.

Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening
between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or
noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and
slewed my head round.

"Ha, my joker," cried Nemesis, in the shape of this young corporal, who
I saw was surrounded by a small crowd of my grinning shipmates, "I've
caught you this time!"

He had, with a vengeance; for not only had he seized me `flagrante
delicto,' as the captain said to me subsequently, he being a Latin
scholar, the meaning of which was, I suppose, that I had the delicious
fragrance of the 'baccy about me, but Smithers, the corporal, wrenched
the pipe that was the cause of all the mischief from my hand, as I
hastily removed it from my mouth and attempted to conceal it.

He reported me in due course to `Jimmy the One,' our first lieutenant,
who in due course put me in the black list; and I was brought up the
next day on the quarter-deck before the captain, when we all mustered
for `divisions' on the upper deck.

The commanding officer spoke to me kindly, saying he was sorry to see me
in such a position; but, all the same, the offence being one which he
said he could not possibly excuse, as he was determined to stop the
pernicious habit of smoking, which, if indulged in by young boys, would
ruin their constitutions for life, he sentenced me to have six strokes,
the usual penalty.

Accordingly, `the horse' kept for the purpose, a sort of rough and round
wooden structure with four posts for legs, similar to those saddle-
blocks seen in harness shops, was rigged, and one of the gunner's mates
gave me the allotted number of administrations of the cane that I had
earned.