.

We had run down to Plymouth as usual, and were on our way back up
Channel, beating against strong headwinds, when the weather got thick,
as on our former cruise, and it came on to blow pretty stiff, the sea
getting up and the brig having such a bad time of it that it took four
of us at the wheel, besides old Jellybelly the quarter-master, to keep
her on her course.

As luck would have it, `Gyp' the captain's dog had come with us for the
trip, his master being away on leave, and the commander of the _Martin_,
who had volunteered to take charge of him during the captain's absence,
thinking it best to keep him under his own eye.

`Gyp' was very partial to me, as might be imagined from the fact of my
having been so long in the habit of taking him ashore with me; and,
consequently, during our cruise he attached himself with that strong
bias for which his breed is proverbial to my humble self, preferring,
when allowed the opportunity, to share my quarters even to enjoying the
luxuries of the wardroom of the brig aft.

His keen eye ever watched my movements when on deck and a word or look
from me was sufficient to set his stumpy tail wagging as if it would
never stop; while he would lick my bare feet in a most affectionate
manner should I ever pass near him and give him the chance, showing me
his `bad leg,' if the slightest hint to that effect were given, by
holding up one of his hind limbs and stretching it out in a most
extraordinary manner, the captain's valet having taught him this trick
when he was a puppy and `Gyp' never having forgotten it though he had
arrived at maturer years.

Nor, likewise, had he forgotten the art of balancing a biscuit on his
nose and not dropping it or offering in any way to masticate the same,
however much his feelings might be inclined thereto, without the
permissive order, `Now you may have it,' being uttered.

`Gyp,' I am afraid, was not a born sailor like myself and family.

No ancestral fox-terrier of his race could possibly, I fancy, have `gone
aloft' like the original head of our house; for, though he liked being
at sea well enough in fine weather, he got in the dumps when it came on
to blow, his apology for a tail becoming so limp that what there was of
it drooped and lost its wag, so, that being left in the lurch through
his rudder not answering the helm, he stumbled about the deck like any
young Johnny Raw just come afloat.

Rolling and labouring, heeling over gunwales unde