ediately acted upon by Price, who was up the ladder
and on the forecastle in a few seconds.--"And I must go up too. How
cursed annoying to be stationed in the waist! Nothing to do, except to
stop my ears against the infernal stamp-and-go of the marines and
after-guards, over my head; sweet music to a first-lieutenant, but to me
discord most horrible. I could _stamp_ with vexation."

"Had you not better _go_ first and _stamp_ afterwards?" observed the
surgeon, drily.

"I think I had, indeed," replied Courtenay, as he bolted out of the
gun-room door.--"Cursed annoying! but the captain's such a bilious
subject."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion
my crown.

HENRY IV. PART I.

We must now descend to the steerage, where our hero is seated in the
berth, in company with a dozen more (as they designated themselves, from
the extreme heat of their domicile) _perspiring_ young heroes, who were
amusing themselves with crunching hard biscuits, and at the same time a
due proportion of those little animals of the scaribee tribe,
denominated weevils, who had located themselves in the _unleavened
bread_, and which the midshipmen declared to be the only fresh meat
which they had tasted for some time.

Captain M---'s character stood so high at the Admiralty, that the major
part of the young _aspirants_ who had been committed to his charge were
of good family and connections. At that time few of the aristocracy or
gentry ventured to send their sons into the navy; whereas, at present,
none but those classes can obtain admission.

A better school for training young officers could not have been
selected; and the midshipmen's berth of the _Aspasia_ was as superior to
those in other ships, as Captain M--- was himself to the generality of
his contemporary captains in the service. But I cannot pay these young
men the compliment to introduce them one by one, as I did the gun-room
officers. It would be an anomaly unheard of. I shall, therefore, with
every respect for them, describe them just as I want them. It was one
bell after eight o'clock--a bottle of ship's rum, a black jack of putrid
water, and a tin bread-basket, are on the table, which is lighted with a
tallow candle of about thirteen to the pound.

"I say, Mr Jerry Sneak, what are you after there--what are you foraging
for in that locker?" said one of the oldsters of the berth to a
half-starved, weak-looki