after
lying a short time with her anchor "short stay apeak," Captain M--- came
on board, the anchor was run up to the bows, and once more the frigate
started, like an armed knight in search of battle and adventure.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and the tenants of the gun-room had
assembled to their repast. "Now all my misery is about to commence,"
cried Courtenay, as he took his seat at the gun-room table, on which the
dinner was smoking in all the variety of pea-soup, Irish stew, and
boiled mutton with caper sauce.

"Indeed!" said the master. "Pray, then, what is it that you have been
grumbling about, ever since you have joined the ship?"

"Psha! they were only petty vexations, but now we are at sea. I shall
be sea-sick. I am always obliged to throw off the accumulation of bile
whenever I go out of harbour."

"I say, doctor," replied Pearce, "can you stop up the leak in that
little gentleman's liver? He's not content to keep a hand-pump going to
get rid of his bile when in harbour, but it seems that he requires the
chain-pumps to be manned when he goes to sea."

"Chain-pumps!" exclaimed Courtenay, shuddering, and drawing back his
head with a grimace at the idea of such a forcible discharge, and then
looking round at his messmates with one of his serio-comic faces.

"Pumps! ay," said Price; "you remember Shakespeare in the `Tempest'--he
says--dear me,--I--"

"Come, Price," said Courtenay, "don't make me sick before my time,--it's
unkind. You don't know what an analogy there is between spouting and
sea-sickness. In both cases you throw up what is nauseous, because your
head or you stomach is too weak to retain it. Spare me, then, a
quotation, my dear fellow, till you see me in the agony of Nature
`aback,' and then one will be of service in assisting her efforts to
`box off.' I say, Billy Pitt, did you stow away the two jars of pickled
cabbage in my cabin?"

We must here break off the conversation to introduce this personage to
the reader. He was a black, who ran away, when quite a lad, from his
master at Barbadoes, and entered on board of a man-of-war. Macallan,
the surgeon, had taken a fancy to him, and he had been his servant for
some years, following him into different ships. He was a very
intelligent and singular character. Macallan had taught him to read and
write, and he was not a little proud of his acquirements. He was
excessively good-humoured, and a general favourite of the offic