The consequence was, that most of them had to go without tea for that evening. There was a tanner, however, on board with a large family, who quietly expressed his opinion that those who would go to America must know how to help themselves, and taking hold of a large bucket, whereon a capital "H" was painted, he got the cook, who laughingly did as he wished, to pour the tea for his whole family into the bucket. "I say, that's too strong for the children," quoth his wife, as she stared into the bucket; "you had better pour some more water into it." "But I've got none hot," pleaded the husband, who would not understand the tea's being too strong. "Well, then, take some cold," replied his better half; "why, the tea is boiling hot." The tanner with a sigh obeyed, and asked a sailor who was just hauling up a bucketful for some of it, which request the latter, so soon as he had been told what it was for, willingly granted, and with the most obliging countenance in the world, he diluted the tea for them which had been pronounced too strong. The sailor remained standing beside them. The tanner's wife, after merely touching the mixture with her lips, to see that it was not too hot, poured a spoonful down the throat of her youngest child; no sooner was it partly down, however, than he sung out lustily, struck about him with hands and feet, and spluttered out that which he had just taken in great haste. Frightened to death, the woman took a gulp of the beverage herself, fearing lest she had scalded the child; it was cool enough, but it produced nearly the same symptoms in her as it had in the child--the tea was completely--pickled. The sailor went back to his work, chuckling inwardly, first whispering to the husband, "Now, do you see, you're on salt water." Fortunately there was plenty of tea left for that evening, and the cook gave them a second allowance. But the time had now arrived for them to look after their sleeping places before it was quite dark, and all crept with their mattresses and blankets into one or other of the "berths," as the square boxes, fixed two and two, one over another, are called, in order to have some place to lay their heads for this night at all events, if not for the whole voyage. It was a scene of disorder and confusion; chests, boxes, umbrellas, hat-cases, blankets, mattresses, and cooking apparatus, and even here and there human beings stretched out upon them, laid about higgledy-piggledy, in the thickening twilight, and looked like some shapeless chaos. The water, fortunately, remained quiet, so that no danger was to be feared from the motion of the ship; but as the rays of the following morning's sun lighted up the steerage, they gave the unfortunate occupants some notion of the miseries of a sea voyage.