the crew, and especially certain of the
marines, are invariably suspected to be _fancy-men_ and _white-mice_,
and are accordingly more or less hated by their comrades.

Now, in addition to having an eye on the master-at-arms and his aids,
the day-gamblers must see to it, that every person suspected of being a
_white-mouse_ or _fancy-man_, is like-wise dogged wherever he goes.
Additional scouts are retained constantly to snuff at their trail. But
the mysteries of man-of-war vice are wonderful; and it is now to be
recorded, that, from long habit and observation, and familiarity with
the _guardo moves_ and _manoeuvres_ of a frigate, the master-at-arms
and his aids can almost invariably tell when any gambling is going on
by day; though, in the crowded vessel, abounding in decks, tops, dark
places, and outlandish corners of all sorts, they may not be able to
pounce upon the identical spot where the gamblers are hidden.

During the period that Bland was suspended from his office as
master-at-arms, a person who, among the sailors, went by the name of
Sneak, having been long suspected to have been a _white-mouse_, was put
in Bland's place. He proved a hangdog, sidelong catch-thief, but gifted
with a marvellous perseverance in ferreting out culprits; following in
their track like an inevitable Cuba blood-hound, with his noiseless
nose. When disconcerted, however, you sometimes heard his bay.

"The muffled dice are somewhere around," Sneak would say to his aids;
"there are them three chaps, there, been dogging me about for the last
half-hour. I say, Pounce, has any one been scouting around _you_ this
morning?"

"Four on 'em," says Pounce. "I know'd it; I know'd the muffled dice was
rattlin'!"

"Leggs!" says the master-at-arms to his other aid, "Leggs, how is it
with _you_--any spies?"

"Ten on' em," says Leggs. "There's one on 'em now--that fellow
stitching a hat."

"Halloo, you, sir!" cried the master-at-arms, "top your boom and sail
large, now. If I see you about me again, I'll have you up to the mast."

"What am I a-doin' now?" says the hat-stitcher, with a face as long as
a rope-walk. "Can't a feller be workin' here, without being 'spected of
Tom Coxe's traverse, up one ladder and down t'other?"

"Oh, I know the moves, sir; I have been on board a _guardo_. Top your
boom, I say, and be off, or I'll have you hauled up and riveted in a
clinch--both fore-tacks over the main-yard, and no bloody knife to cut
the seizing