One forenoon, just before `cooks to their messes' sounded, and prior to our dispersing after the usual assembly for `divisions' on the upper deck, the captain ordered Mick and myself, with some half a dozen other first-class boys belonging to the starboard watch and a like number from the port, to step out of the ranks; when, telling us we were drafted to the guardship for service with the fleet, he addressed a few kindly words of advice to us as to our future conduct and then dismissed us to our dinner, telling us we were to pack up our gear and leave the ship early in the afternoon. He sent for me soon after I had disposed of the `two spuds and a Jonah,' which composed the meal of the day, and on my going to his cabin he spoke to me very nicely, saying that I might write to him should I ever need help in getting on in the service, and that he would always, as he had previously promised, `keep an eye on me'! "Faith," said Mick, on my telling him this, "it'll be moighty onplisint fur ye, Tom, me bhoy; thet gimblet oye ov his sames to go roight thro' an' thro' me, begorrah, if he ivver onst looks at me sure!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN. I GO TO SEA. I did not mind Mick's chaff, though. The captain had been a good friend to me while I had been on board, and I parted with him with as much regret as I felt when I said `good-bye' to `Gyp.' Our meal that day was what we called aboard ship a `stamp and go,' all of us who were drafted being too excited to think much of eating--all of us, that is, excepting Mick! He, as I have mentioned more than once previously, was a chap who was particularly partial to his grub, this being probably owing to the circumstance that he had experienced hard fare in his earlier days before he joined the _Saint Vincent_; but I can answer for this, that he endeavoured to the best of his ability, after that period, to make up for any shortcomings he had suffered from before! "Begorrah, Tom," he answered me very philosophically, when I told him to hurry up, "ther's no knowin' whin, sure, ayther on us'll git another good square male; an', faith, the bo'sun towld me onst no will-app'inted shep ivver goes to say widout havin' her proper regulation stores an' purvisions aboord!" This was after I had my interview with the captain, of course; and I only tell it to show what sort of a fellow my chum was. When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King's Stairs in the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr Brown the ship's corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.