“Do you know any thing about that poor little fellow, I mean Dick Rasey? God help me I’ve been rating him for skulking, when the lad only wanted to hide his grief for his mother from the jests of the crew. I wouldn’t have done it for any thing.” “No—he has always maintained the greatest reserve respecting himself. Has he gone below?” “Yes! who can he be? It’s strange I feel such an interest in him.” “Poor child!—he has seen better days, and this hard life is killing him. I wish he could distinguish himself some how—the skipper might then take a fancy to him and put him on the quarter-deck.” “What a dear little middy he would make,” said Westbrook, his gay humor flashing out through his sadness, “why we havn’t got a cocked-hat aboard that wouldn’t bury him up like an extinguisher, or a dirk to spare which isn’t longer than his whole body.” “Shame, Jack—its not a matter for jest—the lad is dying by inches.” “Ah! you’re right, Parker; I wish to heaven the boy had a berth aft here. But now I must go below, for I’m confoundedly sleepy. You’ll have a lighter watch of it than I had. The moon will be up directly—and there, by Jove! she comes—look how gloriously her disc slides up behind that wave. But this is no time for poetry, for I’m as drowsy as if I was about to sleep, like the old fellow in the Arabian story, for a matter of a hundred years or more, or even like the seven sleepers of Christendom, who fell into a doze some centuries back, and will come to life again the Lord knows when,” and with a long yawn, my mercurial messmate gave a parting glance at the rising luminary, and went below.