These were “hard nuts” for McGuffin “to crack;” on his own deck too, where he had reigned absolute but a few minutes before— The monarch of all he survey’d, Whose right there was none to dispute. But he felt that the iron heel of a stronger despotism than his own was upon him, and that he had no resource but submission. He consequently gave the necessary orders, and straightway the shrill whistle of the boatswain was soon heard, summoning the sailors to the muster. “Onward they moved, a melancholy band,” slouching and hitching up their trousers, and were soon ranged in rank and file along the deck. The lieutenant stalked up the line (he certainly was a noble-looking fellow, just the man for a cutting-out party, or to head a column of boarders), and turned several of them about, something after the manner in which a butcher in Smithfield selects his fat sheep, and then putting aside those he thought worthy of “honour and hard knocks” in his Majesty’s service, he ordered them forthwith to bring up their hammocks and kits, and prepare for departure. Amongst those thus unceremoniously chosen to increase the crew of the _Thunderbolt_, were two or three ruddy, lusty lads, who had come out as swabs, or loblolly boys, and were making their first voyage, to see how the life of a sailor agreed with them, little thinking, a few days before, of the change that awaited them. I think I see them now, blubbering as they descended the side, with their hammocks and small stocks of worldly goods on their shoulders, waving adieu to their comrades, and thinking, doubtless, of “home, sweet home,” and what “mother would say when she heard of it.” On one old man-of-war’s man of the _Rottenbeam Castle_, whom I had often noticed, the lieutenant, keen as a hawk, pounced _instanter_; his experienced eye detecting at once in the long pigtail, corkscrew ringlets, and devil-may-care air of honest Jack, the true outward characteristics of that noble but eccentric biped, a downright British tar, and prime seamen. “You’ll do for us,” said the lieutenant, taking him by the collar of his jacket, and leading him out. “There’s two words to that there bargain, sir,” said Jack (who had had _quantum suff._ of the reg’lar sarvice), with the air of one who knew that he stood on unassailable ground. So squirting out a little ’baccy juice, and rummaging his jacket-pocket, he produced therefrom a tin tobacco-box, of more than ordinary dimensions, from which, after considerable fumbling (for Jack was evidently unused to handling literary documents of any kind), he extracted a soiled and tattered “protection,” which, deliberately unfolding (a ticklish operation, by the way, the many component parallelograms being connected by the slenderest filaments), he handed it over to the lieutenant. Having so done, he hitched up his waistband, with his dexter fin, tipped his comrades something between a nod and a wink, as much as to say, “I think