h, indeed! Stormcock, eh?" repeated little Mills, making me choke
with suppressed laughter. "Then you can tell Mister Stormcock, with my
compliments, that unless he looks after the mess catering better, he'll
precious soon find himself in foul weather with me!"

"Highty, tighty, my young bantam!" cried out the gentleman in question,
the master's mate, a thick-set, full-grown fellow, old enough to be
Tommy's father, who happened to be stretched at full length on one of
the lockers at the further end of the gunroom, and was roused from his
nap on hearing his name mentioned. "You seem to have a pretty
considerable stock of impudence of your own for so young a shaver, and
crow so loudly you must want to have your comb cut, I think!"

"Not to-day, thank you, sir, all the same," answered Master Tommy,
demurely, but with a grimace that made us all laugh. "If I'm a shaver,
of course I can cut it myself, can't I?"

"Hang me, but you _are_ a cheeky young beggar, the cheekiest we have on
board, I think, and that's saying a good deal!" ejaculated the other,
utterly dumbfounded at his effrontery. "What are you rowing the poor
steward about, eh?"

"Nothing--only I thought we might have had a better spread for breakfast
than I see on the table as we're not yet at sea, that's all!"

"Oh, that's all, is it, young gentleman?" cried the master's mate, not
liking to hear his catering criticised so frankly. "I'm sorry you
didn't let us know we had a lord coming aboard; for, if we had heard in
time, we'd have hired a French cook and laid in every delicacy you could
desire. By jingo! when I was a youngster and joined my ship for the
first time, I remember, I was glad enough to get a mouthful of salt junk
and hard tack, without any of your bloaters and marmalade and foreign
kickshaws--ay, and thought myself doocid lucky, I can tell you, if I
didn't get a thrashing from one of the oldsters in the mess, if I
grumbled, to make me relish my grub the better. Things are coming to a
pretty pass nowadays for a young jackanapes to growl about his vittles
and call his seniors to account!"

"Pardon me, sir, but my name is Tom Mills, not `Jack Napes,'" said my
cheeky chum, with meek subservience; and, turning then to Dobbs, he
called out, "a cup of tea, please, steward, with plenty of milk in it."

"Werry sorry, sir, but there ain't no milk," replied Dobbs, still more
apologetically, at this further demand which he was unable to supply, as