By this time the fumes of the wine were well up into his head, and he had a courage not his own; and Clinch was affected in the same way. “Very well, Mr. Gregory,” replied Stokes; but he did not seem inclined to deliver the message. “Why don’t you go back to the cabin with the answer I gave you?” demanded the first officer; but his manner was strange to the quartermaster,--rather silly and simpering. “If the officers of the ship do not attend recitations, I don’t know why the seamen should,” added Stokes, encouraged to make the remark by the light tone of his superior. “They can do as they please,” answered Gregory, with a snuff and a chuckle. “But go and deliver the message to the instructor.” “I should like to ask if the rest of the starboard watch may decide not to attend recitations,” continued Stokes, who was very anxious to learn something more in regard to the position of the officers before him. “Come into the mess-room, Stokes,” said Gregory, leading the way. “The rest of the watch can do just as they please.” The young tippler--he was nineteen--took the bottle from the locker, and, knowing the quartermaster very well, he gave him a glass of the wine. Possibly he thought the dose would stimulate his ideas, and enable him to reach the conclusion to which his superiors had arrived. Stokes was willing enough to imbibe, and he drank off the contents of the glass. “I should like to know what’s up,” said the messenger from the cabin. “In a word, then, we don’t like the way things are managed on board. The captain has disregarded his instructions; and that absolves us all from obeying his orders,” replied Gregory, as he drank another dram. “Is that the idea?” asked Stokes. “That’s just it. The captain has divided us into quarter-watches, and it is by his royal mandate that we are to study our lessons and recite them.” “The captain’s? If that is so, how does Capt. Fairfield happen to be on board?” inquired Stokes, who could not help seeing the flaw in the first officers argument. “I suppose he was sent on board to look after us a little.” “But all hands were required to take their books and exercise-papers with them.” “That was so that any might study who were inclined. I am not inclined.” “No more am I,” added Stokes, laughing, as the Burgundy began to operate in his upper story. “As a matter of duty, I don’t know as we ought to let this thing go any farther; for, as the case stands now, O’Hara is actually running away with the vessel,” continued Gregory, whose speech was beginning to be a little thick. “When a lot of fellows ran away with the Tritonia, and were going on an independent cruise in her, the ones that took possession of her and brought her back were treated like lords by the faculty, and praised up to the skies for what they had done.” “Come in, Lawring!” called Clinch, as he saw the other quartermaster of the starboard watch at the door of the mess-room.