in
the tail of it, put his pipe in his pocket and looked round for a job.

"Come here!" said the mate sternly.

The boy came towards him.

"What was that you were saying about the skipper?" demanded the other.

"I said it wasn't cargo he was after," said Henry.

"Oh, a lot you know about it!" said the mate.

Henry scratched his leg, but said nothing.

"A lot you know about it!" repeated the mate in rather a disappointed
tone.

Henry scratched the other leg.

"Don't let me hear you talking about your superior officer's affairs
again," said the mate sharply. "Mind that!"

"No, sir," said the boy humbly. "It ain't my business, o; course."

"What isn't your business?" said the mate carelessly. "His," said Henry.

The mate turned away seething, and hearing a chuckle from the galley,
went over there and stared at the cook--a wretched being with no control
at all over his feelings--for quite five minutes. In that short space of
time he discovered that the galley was the dirtiest hole under the sun
and the cook the uncleanest person that ever handled food. He imparted
his discoveries to the cook, and after reducing him to a state of
perspiring imbecility, turned round and rated the men again. Having
charged them with insolence when they replied, and with sulkiness when
they kept silent, he went below, having secured a complete victory,
and the incensed seamen, after making sure that he had no intention of
returning, went towards Henry to find fault with _him_.

"If you was my boy," said Sam, breathing heavily, "I'd thrash you to
within a inch of your life."

"If I was your boy I should drown myself," said Henry very positively.

Henry's father had frequently had occasion to remark that his son
favored his mother, and his mother possessed a tongue which was famed
throughout Wapping, and obtained honorable mention in distant Limehouse.

"You can't expect discipline aboard a ship where the skipper won't let
you 'it the boy," said Dick moodily. "It's bad for 'im too."

"Don't you worry about me, my lads," said Henry with offensive
patronage. "I can take care of myself all right. You ain't seen _me_
come aboard so drunk that I've tried to get down the foc'sle without
shoving the scuttle back. You never knew _me_ to buy a bundle o' forged
pawn-tickets. You never--"

"Listen to 'im," said Sam, growing purple; "I'll be 'ung for 'im yet."

"If you ain't, I will," growled Dick, with whom the matter of the
pawn-tick