At first he attempted to look very indignant at the attack made on his veracity; but no sooner did he recognise me than his good feelings got the better of his love of trying to make himself of importance; and jumping up, he seized my hand and wrung it warmly. "Why, D'Arcy, is it you yourself, indeed?" he exclaimed. "I am delighted to find you here, I am indeed. Why, messmates, if it hadn't been for D'Arcy I should have been food for fishes; I should, on my word. Think what a loss the service would have had." A loud laugh from all hands followed this remark, though I verily believe Dicky spoke in all gravity; but the fact that I had been the means of saving his life thus came out. It raised me, I had afterwards reason to know, in the good opinion of all on board; and Dicky himself gained many friends by the feeling way in which he spoke of it. I was very soon seated alongside him in the berth, and our tongues were rattling away as fast as they could wag. Dicky's propensity to brag, amusing as it was to others, was continually getting him into scrapes. We had an old mate, Adam Stallman by name, who was proportionably as tall, grave, and silent, as Dicky was little, merry, and loquacious. One day Dicky having thrown a biscuit at me, which, unfortunately, hit Adam's nose, the latter looked at him sternly. "Sharpe, you are small," he exclaimed; "but cobbing was invented to make midshipmen grow, and I intend to make you grow." "Then, faith, Stallman, I suspect your mother began cobbing you as soon as you were born," answered the undaunted Dicky. Adam's hands had been busy under the table with his handkerchief; now, suddenly leaning forward, he grasped Dicky by the crop of the neck, and before he had time to expostulate, he had him in such a position that he could apply with the greatest effect the instrument of torture he had manufactured. As all the oldsters sided with Adam, the youngsters dared not interfere; and poor Dicky was held in that undignified position while other handkerchiefs were knotted, and before he was cast loose he received a cobbing which made him treat ever afterwards all the oldsters with abundant respect. But Dicky, if he did not forget, did what was as wise, he forgave; and I do not think he nourished the slightest ill-will against his cobbers. Of Captain Poynder I have spoken. He was a worthy man and a good officer; and if he had a fault, it was not being sufficiently strict.