ical costume. "You know what to do with him, and so I leave
him in your hands. Good-bye, Jack, I hope you may like it."

"No fear of that, Mr Munch," I answered; "and tell them at home that
you left me as jolly and happy as ever."

"So, Master Brooke, you want to go to sea?" said Mr Junk, squirting a
stream of tobacco-juice across his office, and eyeing me with his sole
bloodshot blinker; "and you expect to like it?"

"Of course I do; I expect to be happy wherever I am," I answered in a
confident tone.

"We shall see," he replied. "I have sent your chest aboard of the
_Naiad_. Captain Grimes will be here anon, and I'll hand you over to
him."

The person he spoke of just then made his appearance. I did not
particularly like my future commander's outside. He was a tall, gaunt
man, with a long weather-beaten visage and huge black or rather grizzled
whiskers; and his voice, when he spoke, was gruff and harsh in the
extreme. I need not further describe him; only I will observe that he
looked considerably cleaner then than he usually did, as I afterwards
found on board the brig. He took but little notice of me beyond a
slight nod, as he was busy with the ship's papers. Having pocketed
them, he grasped me by the hand with a "Come along, my lad; I am to make
a seaman on ye." He spoke in a broad Northumbrian accent, and in a
harsh guttural tone. I was not prepossessed in his favour, but I
determined to show no signs of unwillingness to accompany him.

We were soon seated in the stern of an excessively dirty boat, with
coal-dust-begrimed rowers, who pulled away with somewhat lazy strokes
towards a deeply-laden brig lying out in mid-stream. "Get on board,
leddie, with you," said the captain, who had not since my first
introduction addressed a single word to me. I clambered up on deck.
The boat was hoisted in, the topsails let fall, and the crew, with
doleful "Yeo-yo-o's," began working round the windlass, and the _Naiad_
in due time was gliding down the Tyne.

She was a very different craft to what I had expected to find myself on
board of. I had read about the white decks and snowy canvas, the bright
polish and the active, obedient crew of a man-of-war; and such I had
pictured the vessel I had hoped to sail in. The _Naiad_ was certainly a
contrast to this; but I kept to my resolve not to flinch from whatever
turned up. When I was told to pull and haul away at the ropes, I did so
with might and main; and, a