keep on coming in like
this. Only at the beginning of the month, too!"

"Yes, sir," agreed the steward. "Shall I make a start with 'em, sir?"

"Oh yes, carry on, Trimmens," said the doctor, looking at his watch, and
then sitting bolt upright in his chair with more alertness than he had
yet displayed. "But, by Jove, you must look sharp! It's close on lunch
time, and we haven't much time to spare."

"Yes, sir," answered the sick-berth steward in the same snappy,
mechanical way; and then, turning to us, he said, "Which of ye came
first, boys?"

"Me, zur," replied `Ugly,' stepping forwards. "I were first aboard this
mornin'; an', by rights, I comes first."

"Boys have no rights in the Navy, or wrongs either if they behave
themselves properly," observed the doctor, giving my joker a `snop' for
his bumptiousness. "What's your name?"

"Reeks," replied `Ugly,' a bit abashed. "My name be Moses Reeks, zur."

"Leeks?"

"No-a, zur, Reeks. We spells it with a `har,' double `he,' and a `k'
and a `hess,' zur."

"Oh, all right, Reeks; but it looks uncommonly like Leeks on your paper
here; and I thought you were a Welshman," said the doctor, smiling at
his queer Hampshire pronunciation; for some of the chaps down our way
speak just as badly as the cockneys in the east end of London,
especially those coming from the country part beyond Cosham and Fareham.
"Now, strip off your clothes to the waist, Reeks, and you, Trimmens,
just take his chest measurement, please. You need not take off your
trousers, boy!"

He added this caution in the nick of time, for `Ugly' appeared about to
peel off everything, to his naked pelt!

The sick-berth steward then proceeded to put a tape-measure round his
body, just under the armpits, compassing his chest.

"He's just the regulation, sir," he said, after inspecting the measure.
"Thirty-one inches, sir, exactly."

The doctor looked at Reeks's papers again.

"Ah, yes, all right, his age is under sixteen, I see," said he. "Just
test his height, Trimmens."

The sick-bay steward took Reeks to the bulkhead opposite, where was a
standard for measurement, the same as they keep in barrack-rooms.

"He's five feet two, sir," he called out--"to a h'inch, sir."

"All right, that'll do," said the doctor. "I don't think Mr Reeks will
grow much more, though; he's too thickset. Get me my stethoscope,
Trimmens, and I'll sound his lungs and heart."

The doctor's examination appeared satisfac