ourned to a pastrycook's opposite,
to eat cakes and tarts and drink cherry-brandy, which we infinitely
preferred to hearing a sermon. Somehow or other, the first lieutenant
had scented our proceedings: we believed that the marine officer
informed against us, and this Sunday he served us a pretty trick. We
had been at the pastry-cook's as usual, and as soon as we perceived the
people coming out of church, we put all our tarts and sweetmeats into
our hats, which we then slipped on our heads, and took our station at
the church door, as if we had just come down from the gallery, and had
been waiting for him. Instead, however, of appearing at the church
door, he walked up the street, and desired us to follow him to the boat.
The fact was, he had been in the back room at the pastry-cook's
watching our motions through the green blinds. We had no suspicion, but
thought that he had come out of church a little sooner than usual. When
we arrived on board and followed him up the side, he said to us as we
came on deck,--"Walk aft, young gentlemen." We did; and he desired us
to "toe a line," which means to stand in a row. "Now, Mr Dixon," said
he, "what was the text today?" As he very often asked us that question,
we always left one in the church until the text was given out, who
brought it to us in the pastrycook's shop, when we all marked it in our
Bibles to be ready if he asked us. Dixon immediately pulled out his
Bible where he had marked down the leaf and read it. "O! that was it,"
said Mr Falcon; "you must have remarkably good ears, Mr Dixon, to have
heard the clergyman from the pastry-cook's shop. Now, gentlemen, hats
off, if you please." We all slided off our hats, which, as he expected,
were full of pastry. "Really, gentlemen," said he, feeling the
different papers of pastry and sweetmeats, "I am quite delighted to
perceive that you have not been to church for nothing. Few come away
with so many good things pressed upon their seat of memory.
Master-at-arms, send all the ship's boys aft."

The boys all came tumbling up the ladders, and the first lieutenant
desired each of them to take a seat upon the carronade slides. When
they were all stationed, he ordered us to go round with our hats and
request of each his acceptance of a tart, which we were obliged to do,
handing first to one and then to another, until the hats were all empty.
What annoyed me more than all, was the grinning of the boys at their
being serve