‘Let him wash hisself,’ said another seaman, speaking with his hands plunged deep in his pockets, ‘and there’ll be nothen likelier aboard us. Dummed if he don’t remind me of my Mary Hann.’ ‘Let’m sit,’ said another of the sailors. ‘I’ve got a drop of grog in my chest. I started on my first voyage in the fore-peak and knows what head seas mean down there to a country stomach.’ ‘Sit and breathe,’ said the boatswain, backing me to a chest. ‘Fetch your sup along, Joe. He don’t look much of a rascal, do he?’ And I observed that he eyed me very closely and with looks of surprise and doubt which somewhat softened the fierceness of his one-eared, glassy-eyed face. I was glad to sit. My strength had been fearfully overtaxed by confinement and by my mental sufferings and want of air. I was afraid I should faint and my sex be discovered. A pannikin with a dram of black rum in it was given to me. I smelt the fiery stuff and asked for water. ‘Neat, my warrior, neat, and down with it!’ cried the fellow who had given me the rum. ‘Water’s for washin’ in. Don’t talk of rum and water. Soap and water, my heart; that’s it.’ ‘Give the lad water,’ said the boatswain. ‘Blowed if I’m going to take him aft drunk.’ One of the fellows brought a pannikin of water and turned a small quantity into the rum. I looked up into his face and thanked him with a smile and drank. ‘Ever at sea afore, Jacky?’ said a sailor. ‘D’ye hear the grit of old hoss in his squeak that you asks that?’ said the deep-lunged boatswain. ‘And to think,’ said a surly-looking sailor, ‘that the town-crier’s still a-ringing for him and his grandmother still a-calling at every public-house to see if he ain’t there!’ ‘What d’ye say to a rinse, bo’, afore ye lays aft?’ said the fellow who had offered me the rum. ‘A clean face may stand the little chap in with the old man,’ said he, addressing the boatswain. ‘Have a clean-up, young ’un, afore I takes ye aft?’ said Mr. Balls. ‘Yes,’ I answered. The boatswain stepped out, and in a few moments returned with a tin dish of cold water and an old towel. ‘Turn to now and polish away,’ said he. ‘Bear a hand. A clean face is like a clean shirt; it gives a man a chance.’