“Why, bless my stars, garters, and hornaments of hall sorts!” said he; “if ’ere ain’t the young gentleman of fortin on the poop deck in his Sunday pumps!” and without more ado he let fly the water, first at my feet and then upwards, till I was soused from head to foot, and the scrubbers and swabbers laughed at my gasps as I know I could not have moved their sense of humour if I had had the finest wit in the world.  However, I suppose they had had to take as well as give such merriment in their time; and I keenly remember Biddy’s parting hint that the “good-nature of my ways” would be my best friend in this rough society.  So I laughed and shook myself, and turning up my sleeves to my elbows, and my trousers to my knees, I also denuded myself of boots and socks and put them aside.

“Is this the correct fashion?” I inquired—­a joke which passed muster for very good humour; and I was squirted at no more on that occasion.  The chill had made me feel most miserable again, but I had found by experience that the great thing was to keep my blood circulating, and that rubbing-up the ship’s brass answered this purpose exceedingly well.  I rubbed it so bright, that when the boatswain came to summon me to dinner, he signified his approval in his own peculiar fashion, which appeared to be that of an acknowledged wit.

“H’m!” said he, “I’ll say that for ye, young shore-loafer, that you’ve learnt that the best part of polishing-paste is elbow-grease.  It wasn’t all parley-voo and the pianner where you was at boarding-school!”

I said I hoped not, and laughed as respectfully as it becomes the small to do at the jokes of the great.

But when I was fairly squatted in a corner of the forecastle, with my plate on my lap, in friendly proximity to Alister, I received a far worse shock than the ship’s hose had given me.  For under cover of the sailors’ talk (and they were even noisier at their dinner than at their work) my comrade contrived to whisper in my ear, “The pilot is still on board.”

I got what comfort I could out of hearing the sail-maker praise Alister as “an uncommon handy young chap,” a compliment which he enforced by a general appeal to some one to “give him” a lad that had been brought up to make himself useful, and anybody else was welcome “for him” to fine gentlemen with no learning but school learning.  For this side attack on me roused the boatswain to reproduce his jokes about elbow-grease versus parley-voo and the pianner, and to add a general principle on his own account to the effect that it was nothing to him if a lad had been “edicated” in a young ladies’ boarding-school, so long as he’d been taught to rub brass till you could “see something more of your face than thumbmarks in it.”  The general and satisfactory conclusion being (so I hoped) that we were neither of us quite useless, and might possibly be spared the ignominy of a return voyage with the pilot.