that cursed habit of drink,
but you have also, I have perceived--for I've had my eye upon you when
you have little known it--exercised your authority over the crew in a
most unmanly and tyrannical fashion. Now, I have always prided myself
on the fact of my ship being a comfortable one, and I have never found a
hand who has sailed with me once objecting to ship for a second voyage
if I wanted him. This I have achieved by treating the men as I would
wish to be treated myself, and not by bullying and hazing them
unnecessarily as you have done repeatedly, especially this afternoon
when you relieved the port watch."

The captain paused here a moment, and I declare I felt quite ashamed for
Davis being thus spoken to before all the men; but he did not seem to
mind it much, for he began to resume his old bumptious manner, shrugging
his shoulders in a careless way and glaring round at the listeners as if
he would have liked to eat them.

"I was drunk then," was all he said, however, in extenuation of the last
offence with which the captain had charged him.

"That is no excuse for your conduct," replied Captain Miles; "in my
opinion it rather puts it in a worse light. I have nothing further to
add, save that I deeply regret ever having promoted you from your
station forwards. You are a good sailor, I'll say that for you, but you
haven't got the sort of stuff in you that officers are made of! The
only thing I can now do, to atone for my error of judgment in mistaking
my man, is to send you back again to your old place in the fo'c's'le,
where I think you'll find yourself far more at home than you were on the
poop. Davis, you are no longer second mate of the _Josephine_! I
disrate you on account of your unfitness for the post, and you will now
return to your former rating, as I have restored your name to the list
of the crew. You will be in Mr Marline's watch, and I hope you'll do
your duty as well as you used before I brought you aft."

He did not say any more; and Davis, without answering a single word,
slunk forwards towards the forecastle, anxious, apparently, to hide
himself from observation. Although he had tried to brave it out when
the captain first began to speak to him, even his hardened nature had to
succumb before the contemptuous looks of the men he had so long bullied,
the more especially as they now openly displayed their joy at his
abasement.

Thus ended the first act of the little drama; and I then no