his papers and stationery. This box, of course, he could not keep
in his bag or hammock, for, in either case, he would only be able to
get at it once in the twenty-four hours. It was necessary to have it
accessible at all times. So when not using it, he was obliged to hide
it out of sight, where he could. And of all places in the world, a ship
of war, above her _hold_, least abounds in secret nooks. Almost every
inch is occupied; almost every inch is in plain sight; and almost every
inch is continually being visited and explored. Added to all this, was
the deadly hostility of the whole tribe of
ship-underlings--master-at-arms, ship's corporals, and boatswain's
mates,--both to the poet and his casket. They hated his box, as if it
had been Pandora's, crammed to the very lid with hurricanes and gales.
They hunted out his hiding-places like pointers, and gave him no peace
night or day.

Still, the long twenty-four-pounders on the main-deck offered some
promise of a hiding-place to the box; and, accordingly, it was often
tucked away behind the carriages, among the side tackles; its black
colour blending with the ebon hue of the guns.

But Quoin, one of the quarter-gunners, had eyes like a ferret. Quoin
was a little old man-of-war's man, hardly five feet high, with a
complexion like a gun-shot wound after it is healed. He was
indefatigable in attending to his duties; which consisted in taking
care of one division of the guns, embracing ten of the aforesaid
twenty-four-pounders. Ranged up against the ship's side at regular
intervals, they resembled not a little a stud of sable chargers in
their stall. Among this iron stud little Quoin was continually running
in and out, currying them down, now and then, with an old rag, or
keeping the flies off with a brush. To Quoin, the honour and dignity of
the United States of America seemed indissolubly linked with the
keeping his guns unspotted and glossy. He himself was black as a
chimney-sweep with continually tending them, and rubbing them down with
black paint. He would sometimes get outside of the port-holes and peer
into their muzzles, as a monkey into a bottle. Or, like a dentist, he
seemed intent upon examining their teeth. Quite as often, he would be
brushing out their touch-holes with a little wisp of oakum, like a
Chinese barber in Canton, cleaning a patient's ear.

Such was his solicitude, that it was a thousand pities he was not able
to dwarf himself still more, so as to