d of the island; and making
a wide reach in towards the Warner lightship, we brought up at Spithead
at Four Bells, comfortably.

Just before we anchored, Mr Osborne, the first lieutenant, sent for
Mick and myself, the marine who passed the word forward for us, saying
that `Number One' wanted to see us in the wardroom.

Wondering what was up, my chum and I proceeded aft, where we found Mr
Osborne seated at the table, having just had lunch, as the cloth showed.

`Number One,' who had evidently enjoyed his meal, being in a genial
mood, as indeed, to give him his due, he usually was, did not keep us
long in suspense.

"Ha, my lads," he said, on the sentry ushering us up to where he sat,
"you've given in your names, I believe, to pass for ordinary seamen,
eh?"

The cat was out of the bag at once, and mightily we felt relieved at
that.

I could not help smiling as I answered Mr Osborne in the affirmative;
while, as for Mick, his "Yis, sor," was rolled out with an emphasis that
made `Number One' laugh outright.

"I hear very good reports of both of you, my lads--of you Bowling in
particular," he said, looking at some papers before him, which he signed
and handed over to the marine sentry, telling him to send them on to the
ship's office; "and, as you are now both eighteen, the proper age to be
entered on the books as `ordinary seamen,' and have shown your aptitude
for the service during the six months you have been aboard this ship, I
pass you, my lads, so you may now look upon yourselves as `boys' no
longer!"

Thanking the lieutenant, we left the wardroom, as may be supposed,
decorously enough; but we had no sooner got out on the dock without than
Mick executed a wild caper, which made the sentry grin.

"Bedad, Tom," he said, loud enough for the marine to hear, "me fayther
allers s'id Oi'd be a man afore me moother; an', faith, Oi'm thet now,
plaize the pigs!"

It was certainly a most unexpected denouement to the ordeal we had
expected when sending in our names, both of us thinking we would have
had to pass some stiff grind in seamanship and other naval acquirements,
similar to the examinations we used to undergo on board the old _Saint
Vincent_; and as we now were rated really as seamen, with the pay of one
shilling and threepence a day, instead of sevenpence, besides having all
the dirty work of the ship taken off our hands, Mick and I considered
ourselves in clover, as you may readily imagine!

The _Active_