Some one emerged through the companion hatch, and, after looking about him a little, crossed to the lee rail, where I was standing. ‘Is that you, Dugdale?’ ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘What’s the matter, Greenhew? Time to be in bed, isn’t it?’ ‘Oh, I say, Dugdale,’ exclaimed the young fellow in a breathless kind of way, as though the effort to check some fit of merriment nearly choked him, ‘there’s such a lark down-stairs--in my cabin--Riley, you know’---- And here he laughed out. ‘What’s the lark?’ I asked. ‘I want you to come and see,’ he answered. ‘I found it out by the merest accident. Heavens, what capers! And if I don’t contrive some excuse to introduce Miss Hudson into the cabin, that she may see him---- Well! well! But come along, though.’ ‘But, my good fellow, let me first of all know what I am to see,’ said I. ‘I am enjoying the silence and coolness of this deck and my pipe and’---- He interrupted me as he cautiously stared around him. ‘You know, of course, that Riley’s got the bunk under me?’ he exclaimed in a fluttering voice, as though he should at any moment break out into a loud laugh; ‘well, you can make him do whatever you like when he’s asleep.’ ‘Go on,’ said I; ‘I may understand you presently.’ ‘When I went to my cabin to turn in,’ he continued, ‘I found him in bed; and imagining him to be awake, I exclaimed, just as a matter of chaff, you know: “Look out, my friend! There’ll be a meteorolite crashing clean through my bunk into your head in a minute--so, mind your eye, Riley!” The moment I said this he hopped out from between his sheets on to the deck, and stood cowering with his hands over his head, as if to shelter it. His eyes were shut, and I supposed he was playing the fool. “Get back into bed, man,” said I; “you can’t humbug me.” He immediately lay down again in a manner that surprised me, I assure you, Dugdale; for it was as full of obedience as the behaviour of any beaten dog. I watched him a little, to see if he opened his eyes; but he kept them shut, and his breathing proved him fast asleep. I thought I would try him again. “Hi, Riley!” I exclaimed. “Here’s Peter Hemskirk come to haul you out of your bunk. Protect yourself, or he’ll be dragging you into the cuddy, dressed as you are, and Miss Hudson is there to see you.” Instantly, Dugdale’--here he clapped his hands to his lips, to smother a fit of laughter--‘he doubled up his fists and let fly at the air, kicking off the clothes, that he might strike out with his legs; and thus he lay working all over like a galvanised frog. You never saw such a sight. Come down and look at him.’ ‘Have you observed anything of the sort in him before?’ said I, knocking the ashes out of my pipe. ‘Never before,’ he answered; ‘but I have him on the hip now. He’s tried to make a fool of me to Miss Hudson, and this blessed evening shows me my way to a very pretty rejoinder. Come along, come along! Should he wake, there can be no performance.’