"Faith, Tom, me bhoy," he would say to me, "Oi can't say howivver ye can go fur to do it, sure, a gossoon loike yersilf who's got a carrackter fur to loose; aye, an' fur sich a dirthy, nasty thing as thit, a- spillin' the tasthe ov good ghrub, so thit ye can't tell whither ye're aitin' spuds or pay doo. Ef it wor a chap loike that `Ugly' now, the sulky baste ez wouldn't hev a koind wurrd fur ye, loike a Christian, since ye saved his rascally loife last year, begorrah, Oi could say the sinse ov it; but, fur a chap loike yersilf, Tom, fur to do it, with ivverythin' to loose, Oi'm ashamed on ye!" Mick's remonstrances, however, were all in vain; for, as mother frequently accused father of being, I was `obstinate like all the Bowlings,' and once I had set my mind on a thing I'm sorry to say nothing would turn me from it. The first time I was caught thus smoking on board against the rules, I was let off with only a caution; Mr Brown, the ship's corporal, who had always continued my friend, not bringing my offence to the notice of the authorities. "Don't let it occur again, though, Tom Bowling," said he to me, with a pinch of the ear, on seeing me once having a whiff behind the windlass bitts; "for, let me tell you, if you're nabbed by me or any one else at it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won't let it go further now, you'll be brought up on the quarter-deck and receive punishment." The ship's corporal's advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out of the other, like my chum's remonstrance; and one fine day I was `brought up all standing' in the very act of committing the same offence. Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who had just been promoted to the police force of the ship, a young seaman whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course, to show himself especially smart. Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and slewed my head round. "Ha, my joker," cried Nemesis, in the shape of this young corporal, who I saw was surrounded by a small crowd of my grinning shipmates, "I've caught you this time!" He had, with a vengeance; for not only had he seized me `flagrante delicto,' as the captain said to me subsequently, he being a Latin scholar, the meaning of which was, I suppose, that I had the delicious fragrance of the 'baccy about me, but Smithers, the corporal, wrenched the pipe that was the cause of all the mischief from my hand, as I hastily removed it from my mouth and attempted to conceal it. He reported me in due course to `Jimmy the One,' our first lieutenant, who in due course put me in the black list; and I was brought up the next day on the quarter-deck before the captain, when we all mustered for `divisions' on the upper deck.