eing to spend our last night at the play. I had
told my messmates about Jones, and how I had been on the stage myself,
so they looked up to me as rather an authority, as you may suppose, and
passing me over the play-bill the waiter had brought us, asked if I knew
anything of the piece they were playing.

Know anything, indeed!

Ha! ha! That was not bad.

Why, it was Jones's piece, and Atlantic Jones, in great letters, was to
appear in his great character of _Jack Brine_, the Bo's'en of the Bay of
Biscay.

Of course we went. We were there for that matter a good hour before
there was any absolute necessity, and stood waiting at the doors. There
weren't many other people waiting there, by the way. There was one
small boy, if I remember right. Not another soul; and at first we
weren't quite sure we had not mistaken the night. However, that was not
so. The doors did open a few minutes late, and then we made a rush in
all at once, paying a shilling and sixpence each all round for seats in
the dress circle.

After we'd been there some little time, and the small boy had been the
same time in the last seat in the pit, from which he stared up at us
with his eyes and mouth wide open, we caught sight of some one peeping
in a frightened kind of way round the curtain. It was Jones, and we all
gave him a cheer to encourage him, and let him know we had rallied
round.

He didn't seem encouraged, but ran away again; and the money-taker,
having plenty of spare time on his hands, as it seemed, came and told us
to keep steady if we wanted to stop where we were.

My mates were, some of them, inclined to run rusty at the advice, for
we'd done no more than make things look a bit cheerful under rather
depressing circumstances, only we would not have a row with him, for
Jones's sake. After a while, one or two more people dropped in, up and
down, and we were, maybe, thirty in all, when the curtain went up at
last, and business began in earnest.

I've spent a good many roughish nights, and suffered a tidy lot in 'em,
but I wouldn't engage under a trifle for another such night as that was.
I pitied poor Jones from the bottom of my heart.

You see, he was a well-meaning kind of fellow, but there wasn't a great
deal of him, and he hadn't all the voice he might have had: and when he
sang out as loud as he could, but rather squeaky, "Avast there, you
land-lubbers, or I'll let daylight into you!" someone said, "Don't hurt
'em, sir;