After the labors of a busy day, the ship presented the comfortable well-patched appearance of a man in the woods, free from the stiffness of new white linen, and naturally fitting into the familiar folds of old duds, unconventional but plenty good enough. The bright spars still attested to her "smartness," but we were in easy trade wind weather and dressed accordingly. The fores'l was particularly large, with extra clothes in the leeches, made to catch and hold every breath of wind blowing over the deck. The sail locker was re-stowed with our "best suit," and between the coils of canvas we liberally spread a bundle of old newspapers brought out by the mate. "To give the rats something to chew on," he remarked, as we ran the stiff new canvas in, tier upon tier. One thing that Frenchy called my attention to in the stowing of the locker was the fact that the storm canvas, lower tops'ls and stays'ls, were placed handy for immediate removal, the mate assuring himself of this fact by personal supervision; indeed he knew just where each particular sail was located in the locker, and could go in and lay his hand upon it in the darkest night, as he more than once demonstrated during the course of the voyage. That night a tired lot of men sat down to supper. The cold salt beef, the hard bread and the can of tea came from the galley in their usual order. Fred, who was mess cook for that week, went back to the galley, after depositing the regulation Saturday night grub. As he left the fo'c'sle door he turned back at us with a grin on his wide good natured face, bristling with uneven outcroppings of yellow stubble. Fred reminded me of an amiable plodder hulking out in his dungaree jacket, while the watch fell to on the beef and tack. "I guess he forgot to thank the cook for putting so many bugs in the tea," ventured Brenden. "Maybe he's going aft to take Christmas Dinner with the captain in the cabin. They have a real plum pudding there; I saw it in the galley," said Joe. Plum pudding! Christmas! The thoughts of loved ones far away, and of those distant homes that perhaps were remembering some of us out on the broad bosom of the deep waters, came as a pang. All of us, I believe, felt this. For a moment or two silence ensued, then Fred burst through the fo'c'sle door with the big surprise. "_Pie, boys! Pie!_" he shouted, depositing three tin plates on the fo'c'sle deck, for we dined with the deck as a table, sitting about the kids on low benches. The precious pie was cut with the greatest regard for equality by no less an expert hand than that of Frenchy, assisted by Australia, who showed us how to cut a pie into three parts by measuring across the diameter with a knife, adding a little to this, and then this length went three times into the circumference. Jimmy Marshall failed to agree with this theory, but was fairly beaten in the result, for Australia was right. The pie certainly was cut into three very equal parts.