Here one of the assistant-masters took charge of us, placing `Ugly' and `Rattlebrains,' as I had mentally christened my two companions, along with myself at a table in a corner of the room, away from the rest of the boys, some three hundred odd in number, who were all busy at their lessons. No great obstacle to our joining the service was put in our way by the examination which we underwent; for, after being asked to spell a few easy words, tested as to our arithmetic with a sum in simple addition, and the multiplication table as far as six times six, besides being given a short sentence from some reader to write from dictation, the head schoolmaster filled up a form, which he attached to our papers, notifying that we were sufficiently educated to become _Saint Vincent_ boys. Our ordeal was thus ended. The three of us were then escorted back again to the police office on the middle deck, where our papers were again handed to the master-at- arms to show that the regulations had been complied with. This functionary did not seem at all surprised at our reappearance. "Ha, Bowling, so you've passed your schooling all right, my lad, eh?" he said to me. "I thought you'd manage to pull through, somehow or other; and you, too, young shaver--you with that fine pair of flesh-coloured stockings on, I mean! I can't quite make out your name here from the writing. It looks like `Damerum,' or `Dunekin,' or `Donkeyvan,' or something of that sort! What do you call yourself, my lad, when you're at home, eh?" "Donovan, sor," promptly answered my friend the ragged boy without any covering to his feet, whom, of course, he was addressing. "Me name's Mick Donovan, sor." "An Irishman, eh?" "No, sor; Oi'm an Oitalian, yer honour." The master-at-arms burst out laughing, for really the devil-me-care chap's brogue was strong enough to have hung a kettle full of potatoes on it. Even the ship's corporal could not help smiling, though in the presence of his superior officer. "Nonsense, boy, don't you try to gammon me," cried the master-at-arms, as soon as he was able to speak. "An Italian from the county Cork, I'm thinking!" "Oi'm that same, yer honour," protested the other, as grave as a judge. "Me fayther came over here harvestin' last summer, sor, an' turned organ-grinder; an' now, sure, he's an Oitalian." "Was it him that signed this paper?" asked the master-at-arms, when he was able to control his speech again after a second burst of merriment at the Irish boy's droll way of expressing himself, and comical look. "I s'pose it's his new foreign style of writing and spelling that prevented my making out your name at first?"