us,
as old Allen would have said, the skirt actually sweeping the deck, and
so wide that it would button down to the very bottom. My white cuffs
reached half way up the arm to the elbow; my waistcoat, which was of the
same snowy hue, reached to my knees, but was fortunately concealed from
sight by the ample folds of my coat, as were also my smallclothes. I
had on white thread stockings, high shoes and buckles, and a plain
cocked hat--a prodigiously long silver-handled sword completing my
costume.

Dick Martingall's and Tom Paynter's dresses wore not much less out of
order, giving them more the appearance of gentlemen of the highway than
of naval officers of respectability. One had a large brass-mounted
sword once belonging to his great-grandfather, a trooper in the army of
the Prince of Orange; the other, a green-handled hanger, which had done
service with Sir Cloudesley Shovel.

Often have I seen a set of geese-dancers compelled to make a hurried
flight before the hot poker of some irate housekeeper disturbed in her
culinary operations, and much in the same way did we four aspirants for
naval honours beat a precipitate retreat from the deck of the Torbay as,
with a stamp of his foot, our future captain ordered us to be gone and
instantly to get cut down and reduced into ordinary proportions by the
Plymouth tailors.

As may be supposed, the operation was almost beyond the skill of even
the most experienced master of the shears, and we were all of us
compelled, much to our dismay, to furnish ourselves for the most part
with new suits. On our return on board, however, we were complimented
on our appearance; and as our tailor agreed to receive payment from our
first instalment of prize-money, we were perfectly content with the
arrangement.

After spending a few months in channel cruising--the Torbay being
ordered to lay as guard-ship at Plymouth--such a life not suiting my
fancy, I quitted her and joined his Majesty's sloop of war Falcon,
captain Cuthbert Baines, fitting out for the West India station.

As in those days I kept no regular journal, I have only a few scattered
notes written in an old log-book to guide me in my account of the events
of that period of my career. A few are still vivid in my memory as when
they first occurred, but many have escaped me altogether, or appear like
the fleeting phantoms of a dream of which it is impossible to describe
the details. I must therefore be allowed to pass rapid