he had been quoting there
ought to have been a shipwreck or two up and down in that piece of his,
and that I should be something like a Captain Boyton's swimming-dress to
this poor struggling author over head and ears in a tempestuous ocean of
his own manufacture.

I met him by appointment, therefore, next day at the stage-door of the
theatre where he was acting, and where he had promised to procure me an
opening as extra or supernumerary. He got me on easily enough, and my
duties, though they made me precious hot, did not require very much
genius. I was on my mettle, and wanted to reflect as much credit as
possible upon my new friend for the introduction, so I fought away and
took forlorn hopes like one o'clock; and the prompter was good enough to
say that I evidently had something in me, and would do better presently,
if I stuck to it.

After a night or two they found I was an active kind of fellow, and had
the full use of my arms and legs, so they introduced a bit of rope
climbing on my account, and worked in another bit specially, where I was
shot down from among the rigging, with a round of applause every night.

In the daytime, Mr Jones and I talked the nautical drama, and I set his
"lee-scuppers" right for him, and got him to make things generally a
little bit more like the right thing.

At the end of a fortnight, however, I was able to get at my friends, and
through them to stop the mouths of the angry coffin-ship owners; and so
I had no more occasion to fight shy of the seaports, and resolved to go
to sea again.

If it had not been for that, Mr Jones would have tried to get me into
the company he was just then joining, and I should have figured in one
or two small parts in the great drama.

However, instead of that, I bid him good-by, and thanked him, and wished
him every success, and went my way, leaving him to go his.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I only went for a short cruise round the coast of Spain, but I met with
the pleasantest mates--bar present company, of course--I ever remember
sailing with. We all of us got to be like brothers before the ship
touched land again in England, and as another vessel was in want of
hands, and about to sail in two or three days for the China Sea, I and
five others agreed to stick together and join. I took two days just to
drop down and see my friends, and the next day we met together and had a
bit of a spree, agre