In this impromptu cradle `Ugly' was let down very carefully and taken to the sick-bay, where, as I was afterwards told, Mr Trimmens the sick- berth steward being my informant, it required the application of the galvanic battery to bring him to, the fright he had undergone, and consequent shock to his system, having been so great! "You saved his life, though, my lad, let me tell you," said the instructor to me, when we had followed the rescued boy down, and were again on the safe footing of the deck. "Why, Tom Bowling, that chap ought to be your friend for life after this." I could not help shrugging my shoulders, with a grin `on the left side of my mouth,' as sailors say; for, of course, I could not very well explain matters anent our recent fight. The instructor looked at me inquiringly; and, seeing he expected some sort of a reply from me, I said, "He'll have to change very much, sir. He and I haven't been very friendly up to now, sir." "Ah!" rejoined the instructor, "that don't count, my boy. The dearest friend I have in the world at the present time was once my bitterest enemy. He and I fell out about some trifle or other on joining the same ship and never spoke a single word to each other throughout the whole commission, though we were up the Straits at the time, and saw some queer rigs there, I can tell you. We've often laughed over it together since, and thought what fools we were." "I don't think, sir," said I, "that Moses Reeks and I will ever be friends, so far as I can see." "Well, time will tell," observed my good-natured adviser, who was a man like father, I saw, one always anxious to make the best of everything. "None of us ever know what will happen in this life, especially with sailor folk; and though you may think it difficult to `make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,' for I can see, my lad, with half an eye that that unfortunate yokel is of a different stamp to you, still I've known stranger things occur. I wouldn't mind betting, if I ever did such a thing, that one day you and he will be the fastest chums." "Perhaps, sir," I answered, in a very doubting manner; and I couldn't help adding, as I turned to go below to my dinner, if there should be any left for me, the other fellows having pretty well done by this time, "Some day, as father says, pigs may fly, sir!" The instructor laughed. "Your father, Tom Bowling," said he, giving me a friendly pat on the shoulder as I went down the after-hatchway, "must be a knowing hand; and I think, my lad, you take after him." It being `pea doo and bolliky' day, my fast friend Mick, who, from his highly developed instincts in the grub line, had been elected cook of our mess on the lower deck, had saved me a good basin of soup and hunch of bread, with which I managed to assuage the cravings of my appetite, this having been accentuated not only by my long wait but by my exercise aloft.