ing occupied drilling below, the middle and upper decks were
comparatively deserted, and things apparently at a standstill.

At Eight Bells, however, all this was altered, the boys scuttling about
to their respective messes to supper, or what we call `tea' time ashore.

This meal was as fairly nourishing as the dinner that was served out,
each boy having ten ounces of bread, an ounce of sugar, and one-eighth
of an ounce of tea, to his own cheek.

Tea, you must know, is styled `plew' on board, in the slang of the
training-ship; possibly, through some association with the `sky blue'
known in the boarding-schools of shore folk.

Larrikins was put by the master-at-arms to `show us the ropes' in
getting our supplies from the galley for this supper, as previously; and
amused himself considerably at our expense, chaffing some of the new
chaps about their not having "smelt such a thing as tea before," so he
hinted.

"I s'pose now," he said to Mick Donovan, whose queer description of
himself had already got wind through the ship. I'm afraid from the
corporal who took us to the sick-bay having `split' upon him, "in your
country you'd eat them tea leaves, instead o' wettin' on 'em, stooed in
ile, same as the I-talians cook everything I'm told, hey?"

"Faith, if I had ye in the ould counthry," answered back Mick, not for a
moment nonplussed, "I'd soon show ye how an Oitalian of the raal sort,
loike me fayther, sor, lives! Bedad, it's praties an' crame we hev fur
tay, sure, ivvery day in the wake!"

This created a good deal of noisy merriment as we sat round the mess-
table near the entry-port, causing the sharp-eared, lynx-eyed `Jaunty'
to spot the offender from his convenient post of observation hard by.

"Be quiet there, Paddy!" he sang out, poking his head above the window-
sill. "Do you think you're in your own mud cabin in the wilds of
Connemara? As for you, Larrikins, I have warned you before, and you had
better keep your weather eye open, my joker!"

We were all as quiet as lambs in an instant, not a sound being heard
above the clatter of the cups and saucers, and the gulps made by `Ugly'
in swallowing his tea, that individual being as piggish in his habits as
he was in his appearance; and, presently, this clatter was increased by
our collecting the mess-traps after finishing our meal, when the same
process of cleaning up was effected as before, everything being left as
tidy in and around the vicinity of Mess Nu