you run and see what it was?" demanded the other.

"I thought it was one of the chaps come up to throw his supper
overboard," said Bill simply.

"Ah!" said the skipper, biting his lip, "did you? You're always going on
about the grub. What's the matter with it?"

"It's pizon, sir," said Ned, shaking his head. "The meat's awful."

"It's as sweet as nuts," said the skipper. "Well, you can have it out of
the other tank if you like. Will that satisfy you?"

The men brightened up a little and nudged each other.

"The butter's bad too, sir," said Bill.

"Butter bad!" said the skipper, frowning. "How's that, cook?"

"I ain't done nothing to it, sir," said the cook helplessly.

"Give 'em butter out o' the firkin in the cabin," growled the skipper.
"It's my firm belief you'd been ill-using that boy; the food was
delicious."

He walked off, taking the letter with him, and, propping it up against
the sugar-basin, made but a poor breakfast.

For that day the men lived, as Ned put it, on the fat of the land, in
addition to the other luxuries. Figgy duff, a luxury hitherto reserved
for Sundays, being also served out to them. Bill was regarded as a
big-brained benefactor of the human race; joy reigned in the foc'sle,
and at night the hatch was taken off and the prisoner regaled with a
portion which had been saved for him. He ate it ungratefully, and put
churlish and inconvenient questions as to what was to happen at the end
of the voyage.

"Well smuggle you ashore all right," said Bill; "none of us are going to
sign back in this old tub. I'll take you aboard some ship with me--Eh?"

"I didn't say anything," said Tommy untruthfully.

To the wrath and confusion of the crew, next day their commanding
officer put them back on the old diet again. The old meat was again
served out, and the grass-fed luxury from the cabin stopped. Bill shared
the fate of all leaders when things go wrong, and, from being the idol
of his fellows, became a butt for their gibes.

"What about your little idea now?" grunted old Ned, scornfully, that
evening as he broke his biscuit roughly with his teeth, and dropped it
into his basin of tea.

"You ain't as clever as you thought you was, Bill," said the cook with
the air of a discoverer.

"And there's that pore dear boy shut up in the dark for nothing," said
Simpson, with somewhat belated thoughtfulness. "An' cookie doing his
work."

"I'm not going to be beat," said Bill blackly; "the old man