good turn to
any youngsters joining."

"Thank you! Then I will leave them now in your charge."

"This is your first voyage, I suppose," the sailor said as he sat down on
the table and looked at the boys. "I see by your togs that you have been
fishing."

"Yes, we both had seven or eight years of it, though of course we were of
no real use till the last five."

"You don't speak like a fisherman's boy either," the man said.

"No. A lady interested herself in me and got me to work all my spare time
at books."

"Well, they will be of no use to you at present, but they may come in
handy some day to get you a rating. I never learnt to read or write myself
or I should have been mate long ago. This is my first voyage in a ship of
war. Hitherto I have always escaped being pressed when I was ashore, but
now they have caught me I don't mind having a try at it. I believe, from
all I hear, that the grub and treatment are better than aboard most
merchantmen, and the work nothing like so hard. Of course the great
drawback is the cat, but I expect that a well-behaved man doesn't often
feel it."

The others had looked on curiously when the lads first came down, but they
soon turned away indifferently and took up their former pursuits. Some
were playing cards, others lying about half-asleep. Two or three who were
fortunate enough to be possessed of tobacco were smoking. In all there
were some forty men. When the evening meal was served out the sailor
placed one of the boys on each side of him, and saw that they got their
share.

"I must find a place for you to sleep," he said when they had finished.

"The officer who brought us down has given us permission to sleep on deck
near the bitts."

"Ah, yes, that is quite in the bows of the ship! You will do very well
there, much better than you would down here. I will go up on deck and show
you the place. How is it that he is looking specially after you?"

"I believe Lieutenant Jones of the _Antelope_ was good enough to speak to
the officer in command of this craft in our favour."

"How did you make him your friend?"

Will told briefly the story of his troubles with the smugglers. The sailor
laughed.

"Well," he said, "you must be a pretty plucky one to fly in the face of a
smuggling village in that way. You must have known what the consequence
would be, and it is not every boy, nor every man either, if it comes to
that, that would venture to do as you did."

"It did not see