"Blessed," said the engineer, shaking the black bottle, "if you devils have left me a drain! see if I don't look out for A1 to-morrow." "Where's the doctor's grog?" cried the sub-lieutenant. "Ay, where's the doctor's?" said another. "Where is the doctor's?" said a third. And they all said "Where is the doctor's?" and echo answered "Where?" "Steward!" said the middy. "Ay, ay, sir." "See if that beggarly bumboat-man is alongside, and get me another pat of butter and some soft tack; get the grub first, then tell him I'll pay to-morrow." These and such like scraps of conversation began to give me a little insight into the kind of mess I had joined and the character of my future messmates. "Steward," said I, "show me my cabin." He did so; indeed, he hadn't far to go. It was the aftermost, and consequently the smallest, although I _ought_ to have had my choice. It was the most miserable little box I ever reposed in. Had I owned such a place on shore, I _might_ have been induced to keep rabbits in it, or guinea-pigs, but certainly not pigeons. Its length was barely six feet, its width four above my cot and two below, and it was minus sufficient standing-room for any ordinary-sized sailor; it was, indeed, a cabin for a commodore--I mean Commodore Nutt--and was ventilated by a scuttle seven inches in diameter, which could only be removed in harbour, and below which, when we first went to sea, I was fain to hang a leather hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately the bottom rotted out, and I was then at the mercy of the waves. My cabin, or rather--to stick to the plain unvarnished truth--my burrow, was alive with scorpions, cockroaches, ants, and other "crawlin' ferlies." "That e'en to name would be unlawfu'."