lison and
the other cadets had of him, as well as myself; though Fred Larkyns, the
big senior midshipman, who patronised us and whom we all liked, he was
such a jolly fellow and up to all sorts of fun, said we would find
"glass-eye" not half a bad chap "when we came to know him better."

Subsequent events will tell how far Mr Larkyns proved to be right in
this conclusion of his; albeit, we demurred to it at the time that he
propounded it in his dogmatic way, rapping poor little Teddy Allison on
the head with a parallel ruler, which he held in his hand at the moment,
for daring to dispute his oracular assertion on the point and making us
all laugh by a capital imitation of the haughty airs of our pet aversion
and his cynical mode of speech, while in the same breath he took his
part, generous lad that he was!

We were all too busy, however, to notice the various peculiarities and
characteristics of our messmates beyond such as we were brought more
immediately in contact with.

Indeed, we had not time even to settle down on board and know each other
properly; for each day added to our company, increasing the number of
strange faces around us, so that I began to wonder when we would at
length get our requisite complement and finish our apparently endless
task of fitting out.

"It is a long lane that has no turning," though, as the old adage goes;
and so, after three weeks more of enrolling volunteers at Corporal
Macan's favourite "rendywoo," and the hoisting in of many guns and boats
and stores and provisions of all sorts, until the _Candahar_, I thought,
would never contain them all, we finally bent our sails, crossed royal
yards and were declared "ready for sea."

Captain Farmer came on board with "all his bag and baggage" on our
ship's company "turning over" from the old hulk _Blake_, to which we all
bade a long and welcome adieu, all hands being then mustered by
divisions to beat of drum along the upper and lower decks.

We were eight hundred strong, all told; officers and men; bluejackets of
all ratings, and marines; boys and "idlers," as some of the
hardest-worked fellows aboard are somewhat inappropriately designated in
the watch bill, according to nautical etiquette; as motley a collection
at the first start, and yet as fine a set of fellows as you could pick
out in a year's cruise!

These preliminaries being all arranged, we cast off from the hulk late
one November afternoon; and, the dockyard tug _Puffing