Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them slick: Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick; And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair, They spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair. They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run, And they screamed when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun. And as he was proud of his gun—such pride is hardly wrong— The Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long. They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said That BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red— That JOE looked quite his age—or somebody might declare That BARNACLE’S long pig-tail was never his own own hair. BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him, “But, then,” he would say, “there is little to do on a gunboat trim I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too— And it _is_ such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew.” I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped! Reef topsails! Make all taut! There’s dirty weather ahead! (I do not mean that tempests threatened the _Hot Cross Bun_: In _that_ case, I don’t know whatever we _should_ have done!) After a fortnight’s cruise, we put into port one day, And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE, And after a long long week had passed (and it seemed like a life), LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife! He up, and he says, says he, “O crew of the _Hot Cross Bun_, Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!” And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits, And all fell down in so many separate fainting-fits. And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me, Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor’s blue array, To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE. * * * * * * * * It’s strange to think that _I_ should ever have loved young men, But I’m speaking of ten years past—I was barely sixty then, And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow! And poor POLL PINEAPPLE’S eyes have lost their lustre now! LOST MR. BLAKE. MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner, Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak, He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of grog on a Sunday after dinner, And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or—if Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it—three times a week.