Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was made up he was to come on board from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bed-room, and take a look at the ship. There was a bit of a breeze with the tide, and the old Indiaman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear the wash of water poppling on to her rudder, with her running gear blown out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge. "Sailor," says she to me, as we got under the quarter, "that there tall mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant bowling you call it, don't you?" says she. "No doubt, marm," says I, winking to the boys not to laugh. "It's all right," I says. Howsoever, as to the bed-room, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased, considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn. Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it. "Midshipman, be blowed!" says I; "did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry, or sitting out o' the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor the greenhorn we've got." "Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man side-ropes for him!" says th' other; "but, my eye, Bob," says he to me, "what a sight of traps the chap's got in the boat!--'twill be enough to heel the Chester Castle to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!" Up the side he scrambles, with the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks made to fit--as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise along London parks, with the watermen singing out alongside to send down a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to hoist them out on board. "What's all this?" says the mate, coming for'ard from the quarter-deck. "'Tis the young gemman's traps, sir," I says. "What the devil!" says the mate, "d'ye think we've room to stow all this lumber? Strike it down into the forehold, Jacobs--but get out a blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap, for the young whelp first, if he wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!" says he. By this time the boy was struck all of a heap, an'