where I swung, for in the middle of the night I awoke to hear a lonesome whining in the darkness beneath my hammock and then the sniff, sniff of an investigating nose.  As I know how it feels to be lonely in a big black barracks in the dead of night I carefully descended to the deck and collected this animal—­it was my old friend, Mr. Fogerty, and he was quite overjoyed at having once more found me.  After licking my face in gratitude he sat back on his haunches and waited for me to do something amusing.  I didn’t have the heart to leave him there in the darkness.  Dogs have a certain way about them that gets me every time.  I lifted Mr. Fogerty, a huge hulk of a dog, with much care, and adjusting of overlapping paws into my hammock, and received a kiss in the eye for my trouble.  Then I followed Mr. Fogerty into the hammock and resumed my slumber, but not with much comfort.  Mr. Fogerty is a large, sprawly dog, who evidently has been used to sleeping in vast spaces and who sees no reason for changing a lifelong habit.  Consequently he considered me in the nature of a piece of gratifying upholstery.  He slept with his hind legs on my stomach and his front paws propped against my chin.  When he scratched, as he not infrequently did, what I decided must be a flea, his hind leg beat upon the canvas and produced a noise not unlike a drum.  Thus we slept, but through some miscalculation I must have slept over, for it seems that the Master-at-arms, a very large and capable Irishman, came and shook my hammock.

[Illustration:  “I TOOK HIM AROUND AND INTRODUCED HIM TO THE REST OF THE DOGS AND SEVERAL OF THE BETTER SORT OF GOATS”]

“Hit the deck there, sailor,” he said, “shake a leg, shake a leg.”

At this point Mr. Fogerty took it upon himself to peer over the side of the hammock to see who this disturber of peace and quiet could be.  This was just a little out of the line of duty for the jimmy legs, and I can’t say as I blame him for his conduct under rather trying circumstances.  Mr. Fogerty has a large, shaggy head, not unlike a lion’s, and his mouth, too, is quite large and contains some very long and sharp teeth.  It seems that Mr. Fogerty, still heavy with slumber, quite naturally yawned into the horrified face of the Jimmy-legs, who, mistaking the operation for a hostile demonstration, retreated from the barracks with admirable rapidity for one so large, crying in a distracted voice as he did so: 

“By the saints, it’s a beast he’s turned into during the night.  Sure, it’s a visitation of Providence, heaven preserve us.”

It seems I have been washing hammocks ever since.  Mr. Fogerty sits around and wonders what it’s all about.  I like Fogerty, but he gets me in trouble, and in this I need no help whatsoever.

[Illustration:  “I RESUMED MY SLUMBER, BUT NOT WITH MUCH COMFORT”]