They must have harbored the silly fancy that in it I gave myself airs, and wore it in order to look consequential; perhaps, as a cloak to cover pilferings of tit-bits from the mess.

But to out with the plain truth, they themselves were not a very irreproachable set.
Considering the sequel I am coming to, this avowal may be deemed sheer malice; but for all that, I cannot avoid speaking my mind.
After my week of office, the mess gradually changed their behaviour to me; they cut me to the heart; they became cold and reserved; seldom or never addressed me at meal-times without invidious allusions to my _duff_, and also to my jacket, and its dripping in wet weather upon the mess-cloth.

However, I had no idea that anything serious, on their part, was brewing; but alas! so it turned out.
We were assembled at supper one evening when I noticed certain winks and silent hints tipped to the cook, who presided.

He was a little, oily fellow, who had once kept an oyster-cellar ashore; he bore me a grudge.

Looking down on the mess-cloth, he observed that some fellows never knew when their room was better than their company.