and. He says little because he
is too lazy to speak. He has served more than _eight years_; but as for
passing--it has never come into his head. Such are the three persons
who are now sitting in the cabin of the revenue-cutter, drinking hot
gin-toddy.

"Let me see, it was, I think, in ninety-three or ninety-four. Before
you were in the service, Tomkins--"

"Maybe, sir; it's so long ago since I entered, that I can't recollect
dates--but this I know, that my aunt died three days before."

"Then the question is, when did your aunt die?"

"Oh! She died about a year after my uncle."

"And when did your uncle die?"

"I'll be hanged if I know!"

"Then, d'ye see, you've no departure to work from. However, I think you
cannot have been in the service at that time. We were not quite so
particular about uniform as we are now."

"Then I think the service was all the better for it. Now-a-days, in
your crack ships, a mate has to go down in the hold or spirit-room, and
after whipping up fifty empty casks, and breaking out twenty full ones,
he is expected to come on quarter-deck as clean as if he was just come
out of a band-box."

"Well, there's plenty of water alongside, as far as the outward man
goes, and iron dust is soon brushed off. However, as you say, perhaps a
little too much is expected; at least, in five of the ships in which I
was first-lieutenant, the captain was always hauling me over the coals
about the midshipmen not dressing properly, as if I was their dry-nurse.
I wonder what Captain Prigg would have said if he had seen such a
turn-out as you, Mr Smith, on his quarter-deck."

"I should have had one turn-out more," drawled Smith.

"With your out-at-elbows jacket, there, eh!" continued Mr Appleboy.

Smith turned up his elbows, looked at one and then at the other; after
so fatiguing an operation, he was silent.

"Well, where was I? Oh! It was about ninety-three or ninety-four, as I
said that it happened--Tomkins, fill your glass and hand me the sugar--
how do I get on? This is Number 15," said Appleboy, counting some white
lines on the table by him; and taking up a piece of chalk, he marked one
more line on his tally. "I don't think this is so good a tub as the
last, Tomkins, there's a twang about it--a want of juniper; however, I
hope, we shall have better luck this time. Of course you know we sail
to-morrow?"

"I presume so, by the leg of mutton coming on board."

"True--true; I'm regular