LISTENERS SELDOM HEAR GOOD THINGS OF THEMSELVES--RALPH AT A DREADFUL DISCOUNT WITH HIS MESSMATES, BUT CONTRIVES TO SETTLE HIS ACCOUNTS WITH HIS PRINCIPAL DEBTOR. I left him, with a strong foreboding that he would work me some direful mischief. For the long day I sat, with my head buried in my hands on the sordid table of our berth. I ate not, I spoke not. The ribaldry of my coarse associates moved me not; their boisterous and vulgar mirth aroused me not. They thought me, owing to my arrest, and my anticipations of its consequences, torpid with fear. They were deceived. I was never more alive. My existence was--if I may so speak--glowing and fiery hot; my sense of being was intense with various misery. Towards evening, another piece of intelligence reached me, that alarmed and astounded me. Since the laying on of the one lash on the back of Joshua Daunton, our old servant had descended from the mizzen-top, again to wait upon us. He was, in his way, an insatiate news-gatherer; but he was as liberal in dispensing it as he was eager in acquiring it. The midshipmen were drinking, out of the still unbroken cups and two or three tin pannikins, their grog at eight o'clock in the evening, when our unshod and dirty attendant spoke thus: "Oh, Mr Pigtop!--such news!--such strange news! You'll be so very sorry to hear it, sir, and so will all the young gentlemen." "What, has the ship tumbled overboard, or the pig-ballast mutinied for arrears of pay?" "Oh, sir, ten thousand times worse than that! That thief of the world, sir, Joshua Daunton, is not to have his six dozen, after all, though he did corrupt all the midshipmen's clothes, sir. Dr Thompson has taken him into his own cabin, and nothing is now too good for him." "But hanging," said the indignant and scarred master's mate. "If he's not flogged, I'll have the life out of him yet, though he should turn out to be the only son of Lord Dunknow-Who." Pigtop was a wit, in a small midshipman-like way. "He's turned out to be some great man they say, however--in clog or so, I think they call it; though, for my part, I remembers him in irons well enough not more than a fortnight aback-- and he's had a taste of the girl with nine tails, however--that's one comfort, to me, whatever he may turn out." The vulgar have strange sources from which to derive comfort. "But are you sure of all this, Bill?" said Mr Staines. "Because, if he should turn out to be somebody, I'll make him pay me for my traps; that's as certain now as that he'll be sent to Old Davy." "Certain sure. He showed the doctor papers enough to set up a lawyer's shop. But that's not the best of it--hum--ha! Do you think, Mr Pigtop, that Mr Rattlin's caulking?" (i.e., asleep).