enough for the Channel, except the rain—when what does I see but the 'Green Hand' on the weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying pins, with a yumbereller over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the officers was on deck save the third mate. The mate goes up to him, and looks in his face. 'Why,' says he, 'you confounded longshore, picked-up son of a greengrocer, what are you after?' an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. 'Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber,' says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers—'it's well the captain didn't catch ye! Come aft here, some of ye,' sings out the third mate again, 'to brace up the main-yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and pull!' At this the greenhorn looks round doubtful, like, then at last he takes out a pair o' double gloves, shoves his fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. 'Well!' says the mate, 'if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tar-bucket and dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands were made for! I never could a-bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again.' If you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when I shoved his missy fingers into the tar, and chucked them gloves o'board! The next moment he ups fist and made a slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate gives him a kick astarn; and the young chap went sprawling down into the half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin—and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. 'Now,' says the mate, 'the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad,' says he; 'that fellow'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad,' says the third mate; 'he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha, ha, ha!' says he, again, laughing, ''tis the first time I ever see a embrella loosed out at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even. He's the greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of the young spark!'

"Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming down, in course, ye know, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the watch, slash comes a bucketful o' Channel water over him. The third mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sterns'l boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it, likewise, in the half-deck; bein' last come, in course, he had al'ays to go and fill the bread-barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them owners' 'prentices, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own kind by far nor the 'comming sailors,' as the longshore folks calls a foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, bein' the only one as had known the way of his upbringing, and I feels a sort of a charge of him like; so one night I gets a quiet spell with him in the watch, an' as soon 's I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water stand i' the boy's eyes. 'It's a good thing,' says he, tryin' to gulp it down—'it's a goo—good thing mother don't see all this!' 'Ho, ho!' says I, 'my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the land cleared out, and sniff the blue breeze nat'ral like, all at once! Hows'ever, my lad,' says I, 'take my advice—bring your hammock an' chest into the foc'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts and canvas trousers; turn to, ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you—you'll soon find the differings betwixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men'll soon make a sailor of you; you'll see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!'

"Well, next night, what does he do but follers what I said, and afore long most of his troubles was naterally over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the 'prentices never left off calling him the Green Hand, before we rounded the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and Ned Collins stuck to the foc'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames, he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt and canvas trousers made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself. He would have me to come the next day over to the house for to have a supper; so, havin' took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay. There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced slips and young ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East Ingees, makin' em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about marmaids, sea-serpents, and sich like. 'Hallo, my hearty!' says he, as soon as he saw me, 'heave a-head here, and bring to an anchor in this here blessed chair. Young ladies,' says he, 'this is Bob Jacobs, as I told you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the fair ones!' You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-and-water alongside of women, if they topped at all above my rating. 'Well,' thinks I, 'my lad, I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone, there was anything of the green about ye yet, but I see 'twill take another voy'ge to wash it all out.' For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig over a few poor creaters that never saw blue water, than not to know the ropes you warn't told. 'Oh, Mister Jacobs!' says Missus Collins to me that night, before I went off, 'd'ye think Edward is tired of that 'ere horridsome sea yet?' 'Well, marm,' I says, 'I'm afeared not. But I'll tell ye, marm,' says I, 'if you wants to make him cut the consarn, the only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty; an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next day!' Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it; for I went round to Hull, myself, and ships in a timber-craft for the Baltic, just to see som'at new.

"Now, one day, the third voy'ge from that time, no sooner does we get up to Blackwall than we hears of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd got a desperate mislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us marchantmen kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen, with badges to suit, a-carrying of a large parcile and a ticket on it. In the afternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we saw the coast was clear, and makes a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an' a broad-brim hat, a-standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his arm, on the look-out for someone. 'Twig the Quaker, Bob!' my shipmate says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to Bill, in a sleepy