ging as a caution to all novices about to join the ship!"

This warning, uttered in a deep, sepulchral voice, no doubt awed most of
the new boys, but it only made me laugh to myself, as I was pretty well
up to such `barney'; and, with little dread of any penalties in store--
though for that matter there was not much that could be said against me,
for I certainly had not tried the strength or the softness of the ship's
planks of my own free-will--I cuddled into my hammock and went to sleep
as soundly as if I were in my own old bed at home, in spite of the
snoring and choking noises made in his dreams by that ugly chap Moses
Reeks, who occupied the next hammock to mine.

"Whe-e-e-e-e! Who-e-o-e-o! Whe-eep!"

So the boatswain's whistle rang out through the ship with a shrill
iteration that pierced my ears in the fresh and chilly air next morning,
awaking me, if possible, in even yet more startling fashion than
Larrikins' successful trick of the previous evening.

"Whee-e-ah! Whee-e-ah!"

There it was again; and, should this not be sufficient to disturb the
slumbers of heavy sleepers, the sharp boatswain's pipe was supplemented
by the hoarse shouts of his `mates' up and down the hatchways far and
near, a very legion of voices!

"Rouse out! Rouse out! Rouse out! Show a leg."

I really thought the nor'-east wind had brought up a great haul with the
flood-tide, and that innumerable costers were calling out some strange
fish in the streets round Bonfire Corner; while our white cockatoo,
`Ally Sloper,' was having a bit of fun with himself and mother by
imitating the cry!

Presently, though, a rough shake of my hammock and the hail of one of
the boatswain's mates close by me told a different tale.

"Here, out of this, my lad!" said he, giving a twist to the swinging
concern that landed me on the deck in a twinkling. "You can't stop
there snoozing any longer! Don't you see the sun is scorching your eyes
out?"

He had a good deal of imagination, had that man; for it would have
puzzled the `Philadelphia lawyer,' whom father was so fond of quoting,
to have discovered the ghost of a ray of sunlight this cold, foggy,
February morning at Four Bells!

The rest of the novices--there being, as you know, ten other `unclothed'
boys besides myself--had been roughly aroused in like fashion; and to a
by-stander all of us must have looked a forlorn lot of shivering
creatures, adrift there on the cheerless deck in the half li