Ralph breakfasted with the other two apprentices, their hours being earlier than those of his uncle's cabin. After this meal, he did what work was expected from him, and liked to be clean and ready by the time when Mr. Gilchrist could attend to him in the poop, where chiefly he spent the remainder of the day.
One morning Ralph awoke suddenly, experiencing a very disagreeable shock. The time-honoured joke of letting his hammock down at the head had been played upon him, and Kirke lay comfortably on his own bed squirting water all over him.
"Have done, Kirke!" he cried angrily. "How would you like to be served so?"
"Try it on if you dare," retorted Kirke, aiming a stream of water right into his face. "I only wish you would try it on, just once, and you would see. Get up! You must swab the decks to-day, I did it yesterday."
"Drop that squirt, I tell you!" roared Ralph, as his shirt was made dripping wet, and a fresh supply of water was drawn into the tube from the basin which Kirke held between his knees.
Kirke's only reply was another jet, which streamed down Ralph's back.
Ralph sprang upon his tormentor, and a struggle took place for possession of the squirt. The tin basin was upset all over the bedclothes, but Denham flung it away and seized hold of the squirt.
Indignation gave him superior strength, he wrenched the instrument out of Kirke's hands, and Kirke drove his clenched fist, straight from his shoulder, into Ralph's face and hit him in the eye.
Fireworks flashed before his vision, and he proceeded to revenge himself in a fair fight; but Jackson ran screaming out of the cabin upon seeing Ralph pitch Kirke out of his hammock as a preliminary, and called to the mate on the watch.
"Mr. Denham is fighting Mr. Kirke," cried he, "and has upset a basin of water all over him in his hammock."