they have some other little boys (selected from the ship's company)
to wait upon them; they sometimes drink coffee out of china. But for
all these, their modern refinements, in some instances the affairs of
their club go sadly to rack and ruin. The china is broken; the
japanned coffee-pot dented like a pewter mug in an ale-house; the
pronged forks resemble tooth-picks (for which they are sometimes
used); the table-knives are hacked into hand-saws; and the cloth goes
to the sail-maker to be patched. Indeed, they are something like
collegiate freshmen and sophomores, living in the college buildings,
especially so far as the noise they make in their quarters is
concerned. The steerage buzzes, hums, and swarms like a hive; or like an
infant-school of a hot day, when the school-mistress falls asleep
with a fly on her nose.

In frigates, the ward-room--the retreat of the Lieutenants--
immediately adjoining the steerage, is on the same deck with it.
Frequently, when the middies, waking early of a morning, as most
youngsters do, would be kicking up their heels in their hammocks, or
running about with double-reefed night-gowns, playing tag among the
"clews;" the Senior lieutenant would burst among them with a--"Young
gentlemen, I am astonished. You must stop this sky-larking. Mr. Pert,
what are you doing at the table there, without your pantaloons? To
your hammock, sir. Let me see no more of this. If you disturb the
ward-room again, young gentleman, you shall hear of it." And so
saying, this hoary-headed Senior Lieutenant would retire to his cot
in his state-room, like the father of a numerous family after getting
up in his dressing-gown and slippers, to quiet a daybreak tumult in
his populous nursery.

Having now descended from Commodore to Middy, we come lastly to a set