her, as I had gone to sleep in my clothes, of performing
some sort of toilet and making myself as tidy as I could; but, lo and
behold, when I looked round the cabin of the deck-house, nothing in the
shape of a washhand-stand was to be seen, while my sea-chest being
underneath a lot of traps, I was unable to open the lid of it and make
use of the little basin within, as I wished to do if only to "christen
it."

I was completely nonplussed at first; but, a second glance showing me
Tom Jerrold, one of my berthmates who had turned out before me, washing
his face and hands in a bucket of sea-water in the scuppers, I followed
suit, drying myself with a very dirty and ragged towel which he lent me
in a friendly way, albeit I felt inclined to turn up my nose at it.

"You thought, I suppose," observed Jerrold with a grin, "that you'd have
a nice bath-room and a shampooing establishment for your accommodation--
eh?"

"No, I didn't," said I, smiling too, and quite cheerful under the
circumstances, having determined to act on my father's advice, which Tim
Rooney had subsequently confirmed, of never taking umbrage at any joke
or chaff from my shipmates, but to face all my disagreeables like a man;
"I think, though, we might make some better arrangement than this. I've
got a little washhand-basin fixed up inside my chest under there, only I
can't get at it."

"So have I in mine, old fellow," he rejoined familiarly; "and it was
only sheer laziness that prevented me rigging it up. The fact is, as
you'll soon find out, being at sea gets one into terribly slovenly
habits, sailors generally making a shift of the first thing that comes
to hand."

"I see," said I meditatively; looking no doubt awfully wise and solemn,
for he laughed in a jolly sort of way.

"I tell you what, Graham," he remarked affably as he proceeded to
plaster his hair down on either side with the moistened palm of his hand
in lieu of a brush. "You're not half a bad sort of chap, though Weeks
thought you too much of a stuck-up fine gentleman for us; and, d'you
know, I'll back you up if you like to keep our quarters in the deck-
house here tidy, and set a better example for imitation than Master
Weeks, or Matthews--though the latter has left us now, by the way, for a
cabin in the saloon, the skipper having promoted him to third mate, as I
heard him say just now. Do you agree, eh, to our making order out of
chaos?"

"All right! I'll try if you'll help me," I