ob, the pumps having
sucked dry, and the bilge being thus clear for the day.

We then returned up the two hatchways to the middle deck above, the boy
messenger Larrikins being sent down by the direction of the master-at-
arms to fetch us to be measured for our uniforms, the tailor having come
aboard.

The `snip' did not take long over his business; for he and his
assistant, after putting their tapes round us, and punching `Ugly,' who
would stoop, to make him really stand upright, promised that we should
all have our new clothes by the following Saturday.

"Hurrah!" said one of the novices near me. "I'll then be able to go
home and see mother again!"

"G-a-a, cry babby!" jeered `Ugly.' "Yer oughter 'a bin tied to yer
mother's aprun string!"

"Begorrah!" interposed Mick Donovan, "that's more'n ye could be afther!
I doesn't think ye're afther havin' a moother at all. Faith, ye're too
ugly fur inny one to own ye, save the divvle; an' he'd be a born fool
fur his pains if he did."

A laugh went round amongst us, which was only quenched by the master-at-
arms singing out "Silence there!" and then; the lot of us were taken by
Larrikins to the ship's steward, who served out to each of us a hammock
and a pair of blankets, part of the outfit to which all second-class
boys are entitled on joining the Navy, when a grateful country makes
them a present of six guineas to furnish themselves with a rig-out!

Mind you, though, this sum is not allowed to be spent at the sucking
seaman's own discretion, but is laid out for him in a wardrobe of the
most approved nautical type, suited alike to his wants and the
requirements of the service.

The afternoon, through these means, passed away so quickly, that though
I was once or twice near the entry-port on the starboard side, close by
to which the tailor had measured us, I declare I never once thought of
looking out over the waterway to see what had become of father and his
wherry; albeit, from the tide having ebbed, my outlook was now much more
circumscribed than when I had come afloat in the morning, it seeming but
a stone's throw to Point; while on the port side of the ship one could
almost have walked ashore, the mud flats of Haslar Creek being out in
all their glory, and stretching up almost to the old _Saint Vincent's_
rudder-post!

On account of its being Thursday, a lot of the boys were allowed ashore;
and in the quiet that generally reigned, the majority of the others
be