sir, but you said the cook was sober."

"He was not so _very_ much disguised, sir," replied Jem.

"Oh! Very well--never mind. Mr Tomkins, in case I should forget it,
do me the favour to put the kettle of salt-water down in the report.
The scoundrel! I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but there's no means of
having any more gin-toddy. But never mind, we'll see to this to-morrow.
Two can play at this; and if I don't salt-water their grog, and make
them drink it too, I have been twenty years a first-lieutenant for
nothing, that's all. Good night, gentlemen; and," continued the
lieutenant, in a severe tone, "you'll keep a sharp look-out, Mr Smith--
do you hear, sir?"

"Yes," drawled Smith, "but it's not my watch: it was my first watch:
and, just now, it struck one bell."

"You'll keep the middle watch, then, Mr Smith," said Mr Appleboy, who
was not a little put out; "and, Mr Tomkins, let me know as soon as it's
daylight. Boy, get my bed made. Salt-water, by all that's blue!
However, we'll see to that to-morrow morning."

Mr Appleboy then turned in; so did Mr Tomkins; and so did Mr Smith,
who had no idea of keeping the middle watch because the cook was drunk
and had filled up the kettle with salt-water. As for what happened in
ninety-three or ninety-four, I really would inform the reader if I knew;
but I am afraid that that most curious story is never to be handed down
to posterity.

The next morning Mr Tomkins, as usual, forgot to report the cook, the
jar of butter and the kettle of salt-water; and Mr Appleboy's wrath had
long been appeased before he remembered them. At daylight, the
lieutenant came on deck, having only slept away half of the sixteen, and
a taste of the seventeenth salt-water glass of gin-toddy. He rubbed his
grey eyes, that he might peer through the grey of the morning; the fresh
breeze blew about his grizzly locks, and cooled his rubicund nose. The
revenue-cutter, whose name was the _Active_, cast off from the buoy,
and, with a fresh breeze, steered her course for the Needles' passage.

CHAPTER THREE.

CUTTER THE THIRD.

Reader! Have you been to Saint Malo? If you have, you were glad enough
to leave the hole; and if you have not, take my advice, and do not give
yourself the trouble to go and see that or any other French port in the
Channel. There is not one worth looking at. They have made one or two
artificial ports, and they are no great things; there is no getting out
or getting i