ad
at his disposal; and he seized hold in some way or other of a big quart
bottle of ink which the chaplain kept for a reserve stock on top of the
bookcase at the side--at least so it was thought afterwards, no one, of
course, having seen him do it.

This, with an artistic idea of effect, the monkey poured liberally, not
only over the sermon and other papers that lay on the table, but on the
reverend gentleman's sheets as well, Jocko probably thinking a black
colour would be more suitable and in keeping with the clerical garments
that hung from some clothes-pegs adjacent.

Next, Mr Jocko appropriated the chaplain's Bible, and `diligently
searched the Scriptures' for some time, with great care tearing out
those leaves, and there were many, containing passages which
particularly struck his fancy.

A large prayer-book, whose type or binding offended him in some way or
other, he took up with his paws and very carefully dropped through the
scuttle, to refresh the souls of the fishes below.

What mischief he might have done further, no one knows; for at that
moment the chaplain opened the door and interrupted Jocko at his
devotional exercises.

From the yell he gave out, as the wardroom steward subsequently
detailed, the Reverend Mr Tibbits must have believed His Satanic
Majesty was in possession of his cabin; and, on his realising the
character of his visitor properly, ere he could clutch hold of Jocko,
who was then chattering away in high glee and making hideous faces, his
invariable habit when he expected punishment after some evil deed as
now, the agile monkey, gripping a portion of the ink-sodden sermon in
one paw, and the chaplain's black velvet skull-cap in the other,
vanished through the open scuttle by which he had obtained admittance,
proceeding up the side as nimbly as one of the foretopmen to the
crosstrees aloft, where he put on the skull-cap and very possibly
pondered over all that he had done.

He had reason to; for a fiat of banishment from the wardroom and its
approaches was the sequel to his escapade, in addition to a severe
thrashing after he was caught, which it took the watch the whole
afternoon to effect, Jocko playing a fine game of `follow my leader' up
the shrouds and down the stays, from one end of the ship to the other,
until, tired out at last, he surrendered and took his flogging, like a
monkey if not like a man.

Exiled from aft the main-hatchway, Mr Jocko took up his quarters with
the