o repress his emotions; and,
in another minute, pushing aside a red curtain that hung in front of the
open door of a cabin on the starboard side, forward of the galley, where
there was an appetising smell of cookery going on that made my friend
Mick sniff approvingly and wink at me, our conductor led the three of us
into the doctor's quarters, or hospital of the ship, nautically styled
the sick-bay.

Here, the sick-berth steward, distinguished by a red-cross badge within
a circlet of gold on his arm, took us in tow, the corporal handing him
our papers, which he in turn handed to the doctor, who was in the usual
undress uniform of an officer, a thin line of red braid interlarded
between the rows of gold lace on the cuff of his tunic sleeve betokening
his special medical rank.

This gentleman was seated at a writing-table in a larger cabin
amidships, opening out of the first apartment; and here I noticed there
were a couple of hospital cots rigged up at the farther end, for the
treatment, no doubt, of any urgent cases, such as a fall from aloft or
other mishap which might happen on board the ship, prior to the removal
of the patients to Haslar, which lay within convenient reach up the
creek opposite.

The doctor looked up on our entrance from what seemed suspiciously like
a copy of one of the daily journals, which he had been apparently
studying with great interest; but, of course, I might have been
mistaken.

He was a pleasant, easy-going gentleman, I thought; and when I spoke
about him subsequently to father, he said he was probably like most of
the `sawbones' he had met with in his time in the Navy--"chaps as
wouldn't let their sense of duty ever fret their minds too much!"

I could not help seeing now, that, though the steward held out our
papers to him, he did not take the trouble to stretch out his hand for
them; allowing the man to lay them on the table before him when he was
tired of holding them out.

"Oh, that you, Trimmens?" he said languidly, as if he were too tired
almost to get out the sentence, though he had a nice, agreeable voice.
"What! You don't mean to say you've brought in another batch of boys to
be examined?"

"Yes, sir," replied the sick-berth steward, opening his mouth, and
closing it again with a sort of snap, and uttering the two words as one.
"Three of 'em now, sir!"

"Why, that makes the fourth lot this morning!" exclaimed the other
plaintively. "The ship'll be chock-full if they