carrying a piece of rib-beef for his master's
dinner, he felt perfectly satisfied who had thrown the bone. Seizing
it, therefore, in his hand, with the fragments of his glass, and his
nose still bleeding, he rushed on deck, and halted, quivering with rage,
on the quarter-deck, in presence of the first-lieutenant.

"By Jupiter, what a wigging I shall get," whispered Dicky, in a terrible
funk. "I say, D'Arcy, my boy, don't 'peach, though."

I cocked my eye, and, pointing to the masthead,--"Six hours a day for
the next week, eh!--pleasant, Dicky," I answered.

Master Dicky dared not show his face, lest his consciousness of guilt
might betray itself; for, though unable to resist doing a piece of
mischief when the temptation came in his way, he had not got the brazen
front of a hardened sinner. I also, anxious as I was to learn the
result of the trial, was afraid of showing too great an interest in it,
lest suspicion should fall on me, and therefore walked the quarter-deck
at a respectful distance, picking up what information I could on the
way.

"What is this you have to complain of, Mr Trundle?" asked the
first-lieutenant, as he stood at the capstern-head, with the enraged
boatswain before him.

"Why, sir, as I was a-cleaning myself just now in my cabin, a-thinking
no harm of nobody, Mr Ichabod Chissel, the carpenter of this here ship,
sir, and my brother officer, thinks fit to heave this here rib-bone
right across the steerage against my nose and my glass, and breaks both
on 'em. If that ain't enough to aggrawate and perwoke and--and--
and--(he stopped for a word) flabbergast any one, I don't know what is,
sir, you'll allow."

"Very much so, I grant," observed Mr Du Pre, taking the bone between
his fingers and holding it behind his back. "Send Mr Chissel here."

The carpenter soon made his appearance.

"Pray, Mr Chissel, what part of the meat had you for your dinner,
to-day?" asked Mr Du Pre.

"The tail, sir," said the carpenter.

"What became of the bone after dinner?" asked the first-lieutenant.

"The boy cleared it away with the rest of the things, sir," was the
answer.

"Let the boy be sent for," said Mr Du Pre.

Bobby Smudge soon came rolling along, hitching up his trousers as he
approached the capstern.

There was a wicked look in the young rascal's eye, which made me suspect
he knew all about the matter. He was the most complete little Pickle in
the ship, and was continually getting punished