"Pray, Mr Chissel, what part of the meat had you for your dinner, to-day?" asked Mr Du Pre. "The tail, sir," said the carpenter. "What became of the bone after dinner?" asked the first-lieutenant. "The boy cleared it away with the rest of the things, sir," was the answer. "Let the boy be sent for," said Mr Du Pre. Bobby Smudge soon came rolling along, hitching up his trousers as he approached the capstern. There was a wicked look in the young rascal's eye, which made me suspect he knew all about the matter. He was the most complete little Pickle in the ship, and was continually getting punished, and most deservedly too, by his master. The very day before, the carpenter had reported him, and he had got eleven finnams on the hand for having, in conveying Mr Chissel's grog from the tub to his cabin, being detected in the very act of taking a hatchway nip--the said hatchway nip, let it be understood, being a sip snatched furtively by the bearer of a glass of grog on the ladder descending from the main to the lower deck. A finnam, I must also explain, is a blow inflicted on the hand, with a cane generally, by the master-at-arms or the ship's corporal. To the said finnams poor Bobby Smudge's black paws were well accustomed. "Boy, what was done with the bone after your master's dinner?" asked Mr Du Pre, in a severe tone. "I'm sure I don't know, sir," replied Bobby Smudge, in a long drawl, worthy of a London professional street-beggar. "Should you know it again if you saw it?" asked the first-lieutenant. "Oh yes, sir; I'm sure I should," replied Master Smudge, brightening up and looking the picture of innocent simplicity. "Well, my boy, what do you say to this?" said Mr Du Pre, producing the bone from behind his back. All eyes turned towards Bobby Smudge: the carpenter's fate hung on his decision. The young monkey felt his importance, and determined to exert it. Chissel knew it was the very sort of bone he had scraped not an hour before. Bobby took it, and, turning it round, examined it narrowly. "Oh yes, sir; I'll swear to it, that I will," he exclaimed, holding up his blistered hand behind his back so that the carpenter might observe it. "As I was a-trying to get my dinner off it, I notched it with my knife, I knowed I did, 'cause there was so little meat on it." "Oh, you wretched young liar," muttered the carpenter, for he dared not speak aloud; "won't I pay you off, that's all?" The boy heard him, and gave a grin of defiance. "Mr Chissel, go to your cabin, and consider yourself under arrest," said the first-lieutenant; "I must report this affair to the captain. The discipline of the ship cannot be thus trifled with; and officers especially, who ought to know better, must not be allowed to set the men so bad an example with impunity." Saying this, Mr Du Pre resumed his walk on the quarter-deck, and I hurried down to report what had occurred, to my chum Dicky. At first he was highly delighted at having escaped detection.