"Well, ship I does with the _Seringapatam_ for Bombay--plenty of passengers she had; but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel; I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy, yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes a note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap a-treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After awhile there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a-singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from--mizzen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as 'Rule Britannia,' 'Bay of Biscay,' 'Britannia's Bulwarks,' and 'All in the Downs.' The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and 'Well, I'm blessed, mates,' says he on the foc'sle, 'but that chap aft yonder with the lady--he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across. What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallow-chops an hour agone?' 'What was it, mate?' I says. 'Says he, "Do you know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reelly green at the line--_green_ ye know, Sar Chawls, _reelly_ green?" "No, sir," says the old naboob, "'tis blue." "Whoy, ye don't sa--ay so!" says the young chap, pullin' a long face.' 'Why, Jim,' another hand drops in, 'that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night. I seed him myself come out o' the mizzen-chains!' 'Hallo!' says another at this, 'then there's some'at queer i' the wind! I _thought_ he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning. I'll bet a week's grog that chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates!' Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I