“I am going there on duty to-night; I daresay, if you asked the captain to let you accompany me, he would do so.”  This was too good an offer not to be taken advantage of.  I plucked up courage, made my bow, asked leave, and got it; and the evening found my friend the lieutenant, and myself, after a ride of three hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheathing grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at Passage, safe in our inn at Cork.  I soon found out that the object of my superior officer was to gain information amongst the crimp shops, where ten men who had run from one of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy, were stowed away, but I was not let further into the secret; so I set out to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in upon us about nine o’clock.  He was heartily welcomed; and under the plea of our being obliged to return to the ship early next morning, we soon took leave, and returned to the inn.  As I was turning into the public room, the door was open, and I could see it full of blowsy-faced monsters, glimmering and jabbering, through the midst of hot brandy grog and gin twist; with poodle Benjamins, and greatcoats, and cloaks of all sorts and sizes, steaming on their pegs, with Barcelonas and comforters, and damp travelling caps of seal-skin, and blue cloth, and tartan, arranged above the same.  Nevertheless, such a society in my juvenile estimation, during my short escapade from the middy’s berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with a tolerable swagger, when Mr. Treenail pinched my arm.

“Mr. Cringle, come here into my room.”

From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, that his room was at my elbow; but no such thing—­we had to ascend a long, and not over-clean staircase, to the fourth floor, before we were shown into a miserable little double-bedded room.  So soon as we had entered, the lieutenant shut the door.

“Tom,” said he, “I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore I applied for leave to bring you with me; but I must expose you to some danger, and I will allow, not altogether in a very creditable way either.  You must enact the spy for a short space.”

I did not like the notion, certainly, but I had little time for consideration.

“Here,” he continued—­“here is a bundle.”  He threw it on the floor.  “You must rig in the clothes it contains, and make your way into the celebrated crimp-shop in the neighborhood, and pick up all the information you can regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard to the ten seamen who have run from the West Indiaman we left below.  You know the Admiral has forbidden pressing at Cork, so you must contrive to frighten the blue jackets down to Cove, by representing yourself as an apprentice of one of the merchant vessels, who had run from his indentures, and that you had narrowly escaped from a press-gang this very night here.”