Having got through the ship's duty, and washed and shaved, we went below, and had a fine time overhauling our chests, laying aside the clothes we meant to go ashore in and throwing overboard all that were worn out and good for nothing. Away went the woollen caps in which we had carried hides upon our heads, for sixteen months, on the coast of California; the duck frocks, for tarring down rigging; and the worn-out and darned mittens and patched woollen trowsers which had stood the tug of Cape Horn. We hove them overboard with a good will; for there is nothing like being quit of the very last appendages and remnants of our evil fortune. We got our chests all ready for going ashore, ate the last "duff" we expected to have on board the ship Alert; and talked as confidently about matters on shore as though our anchor were on the bottom. "Who'll go to church with me a week from to-day?" "I will," says Jack; who said aye to everything. "Go away, salt water!" says Tom. "As soon as I get both legs ashore, I'm going to shoe my heels, and button my ears behind me, and start off into the bush, a straight course, and not stop till I'm out of the sight of salt water!" "Oh! belay that! Spin that yarn where nobody knows your filling! If you get once moored, stem and stern, in old B----'s grog-shop, with a coal fire ahead and the bar under your lee, you won't see daylight for three weeks!" "No!" says Tom, "I'm going to knock off grog, and go and board at the Home, and see if they won't ship me for a deacon!" "And I," says Bill, "am going to buy a quadrant and ship for navigator of a Hingham packet!" These and the like jokes served to pass the time while we were lying waiting for a breeze to clear up the fog and send us on our way.