d in the sea.

Mad Jack was expressly created and labelled for a tar. Five feet nine
is his mark, in his socks; and not weighing over eleven stone before
dinner. Like so many ship's shrouds, his muscles and tendons are all
set true, trim, and taut; he is braced up fore and aft, like a ship on
the wind. His broad chest is a bulkhead, that dams off the gale; and
his nose is an aquiline, that divides it in two, like a keel. His loud,
lusty lungs are two belfries, full of all manner of chimes; but you
only hear his deepest bray, in the height of some tempest--like the
great bell of St. Paul's, which only sounds when the King or the Devil
is dead.

Look at him there, where he stands on the poop--one foot on the rail,
and one hand on a shroud--his head thrown back, and his trumpet like an
elephant's trunk thrown up in the air. Is he going to shoot dead with
sounds, those fellows on the main-topsail-yard?

Mad Jack was a bit of a tyrant--they _say_ all good officers are--but
the sailors loved him all round; and would much rather stand fifty
watches with him, than one with a rose-water sailor.

But Mad Jack, alas! has one fearful failing. He drinks. And so do we
all. But Mad Jack, _He_ only brinks brandy. The vice was inveterate;
surely, like Ferdinand, Count Fathom, he must have been suckled at a
puncheon. Very often, this had habit got him into very serious scrapes.
Twice was he put off duty by the Commodore; and once he came near being
broken for his frolics. So far as his efficiency as a sea-officer was
concerned, on shore at least, Jack might _bouse away_ as much as he
pleased; but afloat it will not do at all.

Now, if he only followed the wise example set by those ships of the
desert, the camels; and while in port, drank for the thirst past, the
thirst present, and the thirst to come--so that he might cross the
ocean sober; Mad Jack would get along pretty well. Still better, if he
would but eschew brandy altogether; and only drink of the limpid
white-wine of the rills and the brooks.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE POCKETS THAT WERE IN THE JACKET.

I MUST make some further mention of that white jacket of mine.

And here be it known--by way of introduction to what is to follow--that
to a common sailor, the living on board a man-of-war is like living in
a market; where you dress on the door-steps, and sleep in the cellar.
No privacy can you have; hardly one moment's seclusion. It is almost a
physical impossibility,