d the corporal, as we emerged from the ship's office, as
the paymaster's domain is styled, after going through all these
formalities, "you're entered on the ship's books and you've signed the
watch bill, and can call yourselves _Saint Vincent_ boys at last!"

"Be the powers, sor," exclaimed Mick Donovan, at once executing a caper
which had some remote resemblance to an Irish jig, "it's deloighted Oi
am at that same! Oi fale so glad, alannah, Oi could dance for joy,
loike the piper that played before Moses!"

"What d'you mean?" retorted Reeks, thinking he was taking liberties with
his name. "We don't have no Irish pipers or pigs in this country!"

"Faith an' sure," retorted Mike, "that's bekase ye don't want 'em, avic.
Ye've got so many pigs, me darlint, amongst ye, bedad, ov yer own,
sure, an' not fur off, nayther, I'm a-thinkin'!"

Before `Ugly' could make any reply to this sharp home-thrust, a bugle
rang out loudly throughout the ship fore and aft, putting a stop to the
interesting conversation.

"Look sharp, lads!" cried the corporal, hurrying us on to where we had
left the master-at-arms. "There's `cooks to their messes,' and you're
just in time for dinner."

"Dinner, faith!" ejaculated Mick Donovan. "Oi'm the boy for ye,
begorrah. Where shall we go, sor, for to git it? Sure, the docther,
God bless him! Towld me Oi wor to fill mesilf out; an' the sooner I sit
about it, the betther, Oi'm afther thinkin'!"

"Come along with me and you'll be all right," said the corporal kindly.
"You novices will mess here on the middle deck, along with us police,
till you pass your bag and hammock drill and get your uniforms. You're
only what they calls `unclothed boys' at present, my lads!"

So saying, he led the way to the aftermost mess on the port side of the
ship.

Its number was `52,' near at hand to the office of the ship's police,
and adjoining the entry-port where we had come on board that morning,
and on reaching it we were directed to seat ourselves at the table, one
of the oldsters being `told off' to look after us, and supply our wants
as soon as the boatswain's pipe was heard; when some six hundred and
fifty odd boys came tumbling down the hatchways from `divisions' on the
upper deck, diving below, to their dinners on the lower.

"You're in luck, my lads," said patronisingly the first-class boy, with
a double stripe on his arm, who had been deputed to fetch our food, we
having no cook or captain of our