Then we all had to nip on deck, where we found any amount of row going on aft on the quarter-deck. The Skipper and Commander were there, looking very serious, with two marines close to them, holding a Chinaman covered with coal dust and in a terrible funk. You should have seen him roll his eyes. I asked the side-boy what the row was, and he told me that a stoker had spotted him as a Chinaman, although his pigtail was coiled all round his head and he had a big cap over it, had searched him, just for luck, and found three dynamite cartridges in his pockets. That was partly why our leave had been stopped, and one of us midshipmen had to stand at each coaling-port, with a couple of petty officers and a marine with fixed bayonet, examine every basket of coal, and prevent anybody coming on board, whilst others had to go down in the lighters themselves. "No blow out now," said Mellins sorrowfully, as he climbed down past me into the lighter; "but won’t it come in handy afterwards?" We examined that coal pretty thoroughly, you bet! Directly it came aboard it had to be upset on the deck, and we had to look through it carefully. But didn’t it take a time, that’s all! and weren’t we jolly sick of it, especially when we couldn’t get away for seven-bell tea? Directly it got dark we knocked off, and then I had to go away in my cutter and patrol the starboard side, with nothing to eat except a tin of sardines, which Mellins passed out of the gun-room scuttle, and which I shared with the coxswain. He got the best of it, for he drank the oil. We were relieved by another crew in an hour, and Mellins had saved me a bit of grub, which I tucked into, whilst the others started a good old gun-room sing-song. Jeffreys, our Sub-lieutenant, who runs the show in the gun-room, suggested it. "Just show the beggars we don’t mind, and cheer the men up. They’ve got dynamite on the brain." When they heard our row some of the ward-room officers came down and joined in, and Hopkins, the Skipper’s secretary, a jolly Yankee, gave a rattling good song. My eye! didn’t we make a noise! and soon after the men began a concert of their own, forward on the fo’c’stle. Presently the Master-at-Arms came down to order "lights out", and Jeffreys asked for another half-hour (Jeffreys is a good chap, though he does lay it into us midshipmen if anything goes wrong), and the Clerk banged away at the piano again. Then who should come down but the Skipper; and we made way for him to get a seat near the piano, and he joined in the chorus. When it was over, he got up and said: "Thank you, gentlemen, your sing-song was a good idea. Good-night!" And as he went away we gave him three cheers and "For he’s a jolly good fellow", and went to sleep on our chests and in odd corners, for the ship and we were much too dirty to sling our hammocks.