ch Mr Skrimmage filled the important post of caterer. "Mrs
Skrimmage, my dear," said Seymour's conductor, "allow me to introduce to
you Mr Seymour." The lady courtesied with great affectation, and an
air of condescension, and requested our hero to take a chair--soon after
which Mr Skrimmage commenced--"It is the custom, my dear sir, in this
ship, for every gentleman who joins the midshipmen's berth to put down
one guinea as entrance money, after which the subscription is restricted
to the sum of five shillings per week, which is always paid in advance.
You will therefore oblige me by the trifling sum of six-and-twenty
shillings, previous to my introducing you to your new messmates. You
will excuse my requesting the money to be paid now, which, I assure you,
does not arise from any doubt of your honour; but the fact is, being the
only member of the mess who can be considered as stationary, the
unpleasant duty of caterer has devolved upon me, and I have lost so much
money by young gentlemen leaving the ship in a hurry, and forgetting to
settle their accounts, that it has now become a rule, which is never
broken through."

As soon as Mr Skrimmage had finished his oration, which he delivered in
the softest and most persuasive manner, Seymour laid down the sum
required, and having waited, at the clerk's request, to see his name,
and sum paid, entered in the mess-book by Mrs Skrimmage, he was shown
into the gun-room, which he found crowded with between thirty and forty
midshipmen, whose vociferations and laughter created such a din as to
drown the voice of his conductor, who cried out, "Mr Seymour,
gentlemen, to join the mess," and then quitted the noisy abode, which
gave our hero the idea of bedlam broke loose.

On one side of the gun-room a party of fifteen or twenty were seated
cross-legged on the deck in a circle, stripped to their shirts, with
their handkerchiefs laid up like ropes in their hands. A great coat and
a sleeve-board, which they had borrowed from the marine tailor, who was
working on the main-deck, lay in the centre, and they pretended to be at
work with their needles on the coat. It was the game of goose, the
whole amusement of which consisted in giving and receiving blows. Every
person in the circle had a name to which he was obliged to answer
immediately when it was called, in default of which he was severely
punished by all the rest. The names were distinguished by colours, as
Black Cap, Red Cap;