service, when you are
asked to dine with the skipper."

We met at the captain's table, where we found, as usual, a great display
of plate, but very little else, except the ship's allowance. We
certainly had now been cruising some time, and there was some excuse for
it; but still, few captains would have been so unprovided. "I'm afraid,
gentlemen, you will not have a very grand dinner," observed the captain,
as the steward removed the plated covers off the dishes; "but when on
service we must rough it out how we can. Mr O'Brien, pea-soup? I
recollect faring harder than this through one cruise, in a flush vessel.
We were thirteen weeks up to our knees in water, and living the whole
time upon raw pork--not being able to light a fire during the cruise."

"Pray, Captain Kearney, may I ask where this happened?"

"To be sure. It was off Bermudas: we cruised for seven weeks before we
could find the Islands, and began verily to think that the Bermudas were
themselves on a cruise."

"I presume, sir, you were not sorry to have a fire to cook your
provisions when you came to an anchor?" said O'Brien.

"I beg your pardon," replied Captain Kearney; "we had become so
accustomed to raw provisions and wet feet, that we could not eat our
meals cooked, or help dipping our legs over the side, for a long while
afterwards. I saw one of the boat keepers astern catch a large
barracouta, and eat it alive--indeed, if I had not given the strictest
orders, and flogged half-a-dozen of them, I doubt whether they would not
have eaten their victuals raw to this day. The force of habit is
tremendous."

"It is, indeed," observed Mr Phillott, dryly, and winking to us--
referring to the captain's incredible stories.

"It is, indeed," repeated O'Brien; "we see the ditch in our neighbour's
eye, and cannot observe the log of wood in our own;" and O'Brien winked
at me, referring to Phillott's habit of bad language.

"I once knew a married man," observed the captain, "who had been always
accustomed to go to sleep with his hand upon his wife's head, and would
not allow her to wear a night-cap in consequence. Well, she caught cold
and died, and he never could sleep at night until he took a clothes
brush to bed with him, and laid his hand upon that, which answered the
purpose--such was the force of habit."

"I once saw a dead body galvanised," observed Mr Phillott: "it was the
body of a man who had taken a great deal of snuff during his lifetim