a match for him. As soon as this fellow--Toole, I remember, was his
name--got away from the arms of the washerwoman his lady, his
natural courage and ferocity returned, and he became the tyrant of
all round about him. All recruits, especially, were the object of
the brute's insult and ill-treatment.

I had no money, as I said, and was sitting very disconsolately over
a platter of rancid bacon and mouldy biscuit, which was served to us
at mess, when it came to my turn to be helped to drink, and I was
served, like the rest, with a dirty tin noggin, containing somewhat
more than half a pint of rum-and-water. The beaker was so greasy and
filthy that I could not help turning round to the messman and
saying, 'Fellow, get me a glass!' At which all the wretches round
about me burst into a roar of laughter, the very loudest among them
being, of course, Mr. Toole. 'Get the gentleman a towel for his
hands, and serve him a basin of turtle-soup,' roared the monster,
who was sitting, or rather squatting, on the deck opposite me; and
as he spoke he suddenly seized my beaker of grog and emptied it, in
the midst of another burst of applause.

'If you want to vex him, ax him about his wife the washerwoman, who
BATES him,' here whispered in my ear another worthy, a retired link-
boy, who, disgusted with his profession, had adopted the military
life.

'Is it a towel of your wife's washing, Mr. Toole?' said I. 'I'm told
she wiped your face often with one.'

'Ax him why he wouldn't see her yesterday, when she came to the
ship,' continued the link-boy. And so I put to him some other