The captain inquired who was the best boy in the ship, and the purser, to whom he appealed, recommended me.

Accordingly, much to the annoyance of the first lieutenant (for first lieutenants in those days did not assume as they do now, not that I refer to Mr Falcon, who is a gentleman), I was immediately surrendered to his lordship.

I had a very easy, comfortable life of it--I did little or nothing; if inquired for when all hands were turned up, I was cleaning his lordship's boots, or brushing his lordship's clothes, and there was nothing to be said when his lordship's name was mentioned.

We went to the Mediterranean (because his lordship's mamma wished it), and we had been there about a year, when his lordship ate so many grapes that he was seized with a dysentery.

He was ill for three weeks, and then he requested to be sent to Malta in a transport going to Gibraltar, or rather to the Barbary coast, for bullocks.