Four applicants were incontinently rejected for manifesting a natural inaptitude at hitting the juste milieu, in this important part of the duty of a cabin-boy.

Most of the candidates, however, were reasonably expert in the art; and the captain soon came to the next requisite, which was, to say "Sir," in a tone, as Noah expressed it, somewhere between the snap of a steel-trap and the mendicant whine of a beggar.

Fourteen were rejected for deficiencies on this score, the captain remarking that most of them "were the sa'ciest blackguards" he had ever fallen in with.

When he had, at length, found one who could mix a tumbler of grog, and answer "Sir," to his liking, he proceeded to make experiments on their abilities in carrying a soup-tureen over a slushed plank; in wiping plates without a napkin, and without using their shirt-sleeves; in snuffing candles with their fingers; in making a soft bed with few materials besides boards; in mixing the various compounds of burgoo, lobscouse, and dough, (which he affectedly pronounced duff); in fattening pigs on beef-bones, and ducks on the sweepings of the deck; in looking at molasses without licking his lips; and in various other similar accomplishments, which he maintained were as familiar to the children of Stunin'tun, as their singing-books and the ten commandments.

The nineteenth candidate, to my uninstructed eyes, seemed perfect; but Noah rejected him for the want of a quality that he declared was indispensable to the quiet of the ship.