uld support
the authority of his chief officer unhesitatingly, I answered him rather
pertly, only feeling my own wrong, and not considering what was the
skipper's obvious duty.

"If you believe Mr Macdougall," I replied, in a rude, off-hand way,
"there's nothing for me to say."

"You ungrateful young hound!" cried out the skipper, who, if angry
before, was now as mad as a hatter at my impudence. "That's the thanks
I get, is it, for favouring you and promoting you out of your station!
Listen; consider yourself disrated from this instant--do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear, Captain Billings," said I, in a sullen voice.

"Then, heed sharply, my lad," he retorted. "Get off this deck and go
forward. Your place, henceforth, sir, will be in the fo'c's'le, along
with the other hands; and the sooner you lug that chest of yours out of
the spare bunk I gave you amidships, the better!"

This was a terrible downfall; but, of course, there was no use my
arguing against the skipper's decision, the master of a merchant ship
being lord paramount on board his own vessel, and having the power to
make and unmake his officers, like a nautical Warwick, the whilom
creator of kings!

So, much chapfallen, I withdrew from the poop; and, abandoning all my
dignities as acting second mate and first-class apprentice, proceeded to
make myself at home with the crew forward--much against the grain, I
confess, although the men received me cordially, and took my part, not
only from their liking for me personally, but from their hatred of the
chief mate as well.

Mr Macdougall, I could plainly see, was cock-a-hoop at my disgrace,
from the malicious grin on his freckled face.

His triumph, however, was not very long-lived.

On making me relinquish my functions on the quarter-deck, the skipper
had sent for Jorrocks, telling him that he would have to take charge of
Mr Ohlsen's watch in my place.

"But I doesn't know nothing o' navigation, Cap'," said the boatswain,
who felt keenly my abasement, and was loth to "step into my shoes," as
it were.

"Oh, never mind that," replied the skipper. "Mr Macdougall will give
you the courses to steer; and, if anything particular happens--which I
don't expect, with the wind we have now and us in the open sea--why, you
can call me."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered Jorrocks, being thus foiled in his attempt at
getting me reinstated, which he thought might have been the case on his
pleading his inability to con the sh