e my advice and `keep the matter dark,' as they said.

"I doesn't like that yere knifin', though," said Master Larrikins, when
Mick had bound up my arm with his handkerchief, taking it off his neck
for the purpose; and we had all turned to sneak below out of observation
before `quarters' should be sounded and the fellows come tumbling up
from dinner, `Ugly' concealing his battered face by dragging down his
cap over his eyes, and pulling up his collar as if he had toothache,
which no doubt was not very far from the truth. "Don't yer try on that
yere bloomin' game agin, you Reeks, I tell yer, my joker, or else yer
'ad better git yer coffin ready afore yer comes aboard this ship. Lor'!
W'y, if the `Jaunty' or `Jimmy the One' knowed it, yer'd be strung up
at the yard-arm this very minnit!"

The incident, however, passed off without notice from the authorities;
although the news of our encounter, with its almost tragic finale, got
about amongst the boys, most of the well-conducted of whom gave `Ugly' a
wide berth in consequence, the poor beggar being shunned thenceforth by
all but the ne'er-do-wells of the ship, that is, until the circumstance
became gradually buried in the past through the pressure of more
prominent events.

We managed, combatants and seconds alike, not forgetting the director-
in-chief of the fight, Master Larrikins, to reach the sanctuary of the
lower deck unseen by any of the ship's corporals, or `crushers,' as
Larrikins facetiously called them.

Not only this; through that wily individual's artful manoeuvring and
pathetic appeal to the gods of the cook's galley, we also contrived to
get some dinner, which, indeed, was particularly grateful to all of us
after our exertions.

The meal this day, being a Wednesday, consisted, for a change, of salt
pork and pea-soup; `pea doo and bolliky,' as it is styled in _Saint
Vincent_ slang.

"Faith, it smills good," exclaimed Mick, with a loud and prolonged sniff
of enjoyment, on the friendly Larrikins anon placing a bowl of the
steaming compound under his nose on the mess-table. "A'most as good as
tay, begorrah!"

"Ga-a!" cried our caterer. "Only a Paddy wud say that!"

"Bedad, I don't say much differ," said Mick, after quickly gulping down
the contents of his bowl with great gusto and much apparent inward
satisfaction. "Pay-soup an' tay soup--sure, they bees as loike as two
pays!" This certainly seemed a very logical deduction; but, before we
could a