My first friend had thawed, and went cheerfully ahead of us, as I was very glad to see.  Dennis saw it too, but only to relapse into mischief.  He held me back, as Alister strode in front, and putting out his thumb and finger, so close to a tuft of hay-coloured hair that stood cocked defiantly up on the Scotchman’s crown that I was in all the agony he meant me to be for fear of detection, he chattered in my ear, “Jack, did ye ever study physiognomy, or any of the science of externals?  Look at this independent tuft.  Isn’t the whole character of the man in it?  Could mortal man force it down?  Could the fingers of woman coax it?  Would ye appeal to it with argument?  Would hair’s grease, bear’s grease ——­”

But his peroration was suddenly cut short by a rush from behind, one man tumbling over another on the road to the forecastle.  Dennis himself was thrown against Alister, and his hand came heavily down on the stubborn lock of hair.

“It’s these fellows, bad manners to them,” he explained; but I think Alister suspected a joke at his expense, and putting his arms suddenly behind him, he seized Dennis by the legs and hoisted him on to his back as if he had been a child.  In this fashion the hero of the occasion was carried to a place of honour, and deposited (not too gently) on the top of an inverted deck-tub, amid the cheers and laughter of all concerned.

Round another tub—­a shallow oak one, tidily hooped with cooper—­which served as spittoon, a solemn circle of smokers was already assembled.  They disturbed themselves to salute Dennis, and to make room for others to join them, and then the enlarged circle puffed and kept silence as before.  I was watching the colour come and go on the Irish boy’s face, and he was making comical signs to me to show his embarrassment, when Mr. Johnson shouted for the grog-tub to be sent aft, and the boatswain summoned me to get it and follow him.

The smokers were not more silent than we, as the third mate slowly measured the rum—­half a gill a head—­into the grog-tub.  But when this solemnity was over and he began to add the water, a very spirited dialogue ensued; Mr. Johnson (so far as I could understand it) maintaining that “two-water grog” was the rule of the ships on their line, and the boatswain pleading that this being a “special issue” was apart from general rules, and that it would be more complimentary to the “young gentleman” to have the grog a little stronger.  How it ended I do not know; I know I thought my “tot” very nasty, and not improved by the reek of strong tobacco in the midst of which we drank it, to Dennis O’Moore’s very good health.