s everything on board was thickly coated with
coal-dust, I very soon became as begrimed as the rest of the crew.

I was rather astonished, on asking Captain Grimes when tea would be
ready--for I was very hungry--to be told that I might get what I could
with the men forward. I went down accordingly into the forecastle,
tumbling over a chest, and running my head against the stomach of one of
my new shipmates as I groped my way amid the darkness which shrouded it.
A cuff which sent me sprawling on the deck was the consequence. "Where
are your eyes, leddie?" exclaimed a gruff voice. "Ye'll see where ye
are ganging the next time."

I picked myself up, bursting into a fit of laughter, as if the affair
had been a good joke. "I beg your pardon, old fellow," I said; "but if
you had had a chandelier burning in this place of yours it would not
have happened. How do you all manage to see down here?"

"As cats do--we're accustomed to it," said another voice; and I now
began to distinguish objects around me. The watch below were seated
round a sea-chest, with three or four mugs, a huge loaf of bread, and a
piece of cheese and part of a flitch of fat cold bacon. It was rough
fare, but I was too hungry not to be glad to partake of it.

A boy whom I had seen busy in the caboose soon came down with a kettle
of hot tea. My inquiry for milk produced a general laugh, but I was
told I might take as much sugar as I liked from a jar, which contained a
dark-brown substance unlike any sugar I had before seen.

"Ye'll soon be asking for your bed, leddie," said Bob Tubbs, the old man
whose acquaintance I had so unceremoniously formed. "Ye'll find it
there, for'ard, if ye'll grope your way. It's not over airy, but it's
all the warmer in winter."

After supper, I succeeded in finding the berth Bob had pointed out. It
was the lowest berth, directly in the very bows of the vessel--a
shelf-like space, about five feet in length, with height scarcely
sufficient to allow me to sit upright,--Dirty Dick, the ship's boy I
have mentioned, having the berth above me. Mine contained a mattress
and a couple of blankets. My inquiry for sheets produced as much
laughter as when I asked for milk. "Well, to be sure, as I suppose you
have not a washerwoman on board, they would not be of much use," I sang
out; "and so, unless the captain wants me to steer the ship, I will turn
in and go to sleep. Good night, mates."

"The leddie has got some spirit