"Be the powers, sor," exclaimed Mick Donovan, at once executing a caper which had some remote resemblance to an Irish jig, "it's deloighted Oi am at that same! Oi fale so glad, alannah, Oi could dance for joy, loike the piper that played before Moses!" "What d'you mean?" retorted Reeks, thinking he was taking liberties with his name. "We don't have no Irish pipers or pigs in this country!" "Faith an' sure," retorted Mike, "that's bekase ye don't want 'em, avic. Ye've got so many pigs, me darlint, amongst ye, bedad, ov yer own, sure, an' not fur off, nayther, I'm a-thinkin'!" Before `Ugly' could make any reply to this sharp home-thrust, a bugle rang out loudly throughout the ship fore and aft, putting a stop to the interesting conversation. "Look sharp, lads!" cried the corporal, hurrying us on to where we had left the master-at-arms. "There's `cooks to their messes,' and you're just in time for dinner." "Dinner, faith!" ejaculated Mick Donovan. "Oi'm the boy for ye, begorrah. Where shall we go, sor, for to git it? Sure, the docther, God bless him! Towld me Oi wor to fill mesilf out; an' the sooner I sit about it, the betther, Oi'm afther thinkin'!" "Come along with me and you'll be all right," said the corporal kindly. "You novices will mess here on the middle deck, along with us police, till you pass your bag and hammock drill and get your uniforms. You're only what they calls `unclothed boys' at present, my lads!" So saying, he led the way to the aftermost mess on the port side of the ship. Its number was `52,' near at hand to the office of the ship's police, and adjoining the entry-port where we had come on board that morning, and on reaching it we were directed to seat ourselves at the table, one of the oldsters being `told off' to look after us, and supply our wants as soon as the boatswain's pipe was heard; when some six hundred and fifty odd boys came tumbling down the hatchways from `divisions' on the upper deck, diving below, to their dinners on the lower. "You're in luck, my lads," said patronisingly the first-class boy, with a double stripe on his arm, who had been deputed to fetch our food, we having no cook or captain of our mess appointed yet. "Not many gits sich a chance on first j'ining!" "Why?" asked I--"how's that?" "It's pay-day to-day, being Thursday; and so you'll have roast mutton and gammy duff for dinner, let alone your pay, mate." "I don't fancy any of us will get fat on our pay," said I, with a grin, in response to his chaff. "But, what's `gammy duff'--I never heard tell of such a thing before?" "Plum puddin', with raisins in it, stoopid," he quickly sang out, we darting off, on catching sight of our friend the ship's corporal, who just then popped his head out of the office to see how we were getting on. "I means a puddin', Johnny Green, with as many `gammies' as the boys don't `sneak' when the cook's working up the duff!" CHAPTER FOUR. I AM "CUT DOWN IN MY PRIME."