!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

I GO TO SEA.

I did not mind Mick's chaff, though. The captain had been a good friend
to me while I had been on board, and I parted with him with as much
regret as I felt when I said `good-bye' to `Gyp.'

Our meal that day was what we called aboard ship a `stamp and go,' all
of us who were drafted being too excited to think much of eating--all of
us, that is, excepting Mick!

He, as I have mentioned more than once previously, was a chap who was
particularly partial to his grub, this being probably owing to the
circumstance that he had experienced hard fare in his earlier days
before he joined the _Saint Vincent_; but I can answer for this, that he
endeavoured to the best of his ability, after that period, to make up
for any shortcomings he had suffered from before!

"Begorrah, Tom," he answered me very philosophically, when I told him to
hurry up, "ther's no knowin' whin, sure, ayther on us'll git another
good square male; an', faith, the bo'sun towld me onst no will-app'inted
shep ivver goes to say widout havin' her proper regulation stores an'
purvisions aboord!"

This was after I had my interview with the captain, of course; and I
only tell it to show what sort of a fellow my chum was.

When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the
ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King's Stairs in
the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr
Brown the ship's corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.

"Now, keep your hair on straight, Tom Bowling," said the former to me,
giving me a good grip of his fist, for he was a very hearty sort of man.
"I have had my eye on you while you have been aboard here; and I quite
believe you'll turn out the right sort and work your way up to your
warrant, if you only keep straight, long before I am laid on the shelf,
my boy!"

"Faith, Tom," whispered Mick to me in an aside that was quite loud
enough for the `Jaunty' to catch his remark, "ivverybody, sure, 's
kapin' ther' oye on ye; an' ef all the jokers go on loike thet, ye'll be
havin' what ye're moother called t'other day, bedad, a' 'tack ov `oye-
strikes,' if ye don't look out sharp!"

"Ah, my h'Italian friend!" said the master-at-arms, who overheard him,
with a broad grin on his face, which was reflected on that of Mr Brown;
"so you're going to leave us too, eh! Well, as some writing chap says
somewhere or t'other in some book I'v