CHAPTER XVIII.
A MAN-OF-WAR FULL AS A NUT.
It was necessary to supply the lost cooper's place; accordingly, word was passed for all who belonged to that calling to muster at the main-mast, in order that one of them might be selected.

Thirteen men obeyed the summons--a circumstance illustrative of the fact that many good handicrafts-men are lost to their trades and the world by serving in men-of-war.

Indeed, from a frigate's crew might he culled out men of all callings and vocations, from a backslidden parson to a broken-down comedian.

The Navy is the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate.

Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin.