"Ah, perhaps you'd better `go through the ropes,' my lads, properly, and begin at once at your `bag and hammock drill,' as all new boys should; though sometimes, they wait till they get uniforms first," said he, hailing, as he spoke, one of the first-class boys standing by the police office, detailed to act as messengers, like our friend Larrikins. "Boy, there! See if you can find one of the instructors handy, and tell him, with my compliments, I should like to see him for a minute!" "Yes, sir," replied this chap, saluting. "I seed Mister Saunders by the fore-hatchway jist now." "He'll do," said the master-at-arms. "Carry on, my lad. Look sharp!" The next instant, back came the boy with one of the instructors in his wake, a stalwart seaman, dressed in the usual bluejacket rig, with a petty officer's badge. "These boys here, Mr Saunders," said the master-at-arms, pointing us out with a collective sweep of his long brawny arm, "are all novices, who came aboard yesterday, and don't know what to do with themselves till they join the ship's company. Hadn't they better pass their `bag and hammock' while waiting for their rig, instead of loafing about here? Mr Gadgett, the bo'sun, was complaining just now of their taking up all the fairway of the deck, and told me I must get rid of them from here somehow or the other!" "All right," responded the seaman-instructor to this suggestion of the master-at-arms; and, turning to us, he said, "Take up your hammocks, my lads, and follow me down to the lower deck. You'll have a practical lesson in seeing how your shipmates do it, lads. We're just in time!" We were, barely so; for, as we passed down the hatchway from the middle deck to the lower region he had previously indicated, it was hard work for us to shove by the surging crowd of boys who were hurrying up, each with his hammock neatly made up and lashed in the regulation form, to be stowed in the nettings on top of the bulwarks amidships the upper deck, according to nautical routine. Some, however, were slower at the work, and, taking stock of these, in obedience to the instructor's orders, I got a very fair notion of how the thing was done; the more especially, as father had shown me the way he used to lash up his hammock in the old days when he was at sea, by the aid of a biscuit bag and a piece of string.