Boxing the Compass.
Sudden as had been my downfall, I was sufficiently awake, after the first momentary giddiness caused by the sharp crack with which my head came against the deck had passed away, to have a shrewd idea as to who had brought about my sad calamity; the giggling and whispering, that went on around, in the semi-darkness, telling me, had I needed any such assurance, that my fall was due to no accident.
“Hullo, my joker!” I sang out, recognising the voice of Larrikins as I fumbled about amongst the blankets and loose hammock cloth, feeling very much as if I were tightly tied up in a sack, part of the lanyard having taken a round turn round my neck. “I say, you first-class boy, there! You with the mug on you like a vegetable marrow! Wait till to-morrow morning and I’ll serve you out for this—see if I don’t!”
“Lor’, yer doesn’t mean fur to say as how ye’ve gone a downer?” cried my tormentor, in a tone of great commiseration, lending a hand to extricate me from the folds of the blankets. “I never seed a chap go down so suddink. Lor’! Yer must hev made a slippery hitch when yer fastened up the end on yer lanyard to the hook. Lor’, I am that orful sorry!”
“Oh yes,” said I, shaking myself free from the last of my encumbrances and standing up erect, “you can just tell that to the marines!”
I was not, however, at all out of temper, having learnt long since from my father, even were I not fond of a bit of practical-joking myself, not to take umbrage at the skylarking of any of my comrades on board ship where no malice was really intended. As he told me, the more a fellow shows he’s ‘riled,’ the more his shipmates ever will tease him.
“If you want to have a happy life at sea, Tom,” said he, “you must always bear everything good-humouredly—everything; aye, should you tumble from aloft and risk losing the number of your mess into the bargain!”
Hearing the row and the sound of our talking after ‘lights out!’ had been called, one of the ship’s corporals came up with a lantern to see what was the matter; and he at once spotted Master Larrikins.
“Hi, young feller!” said he to that arch-conspirator; “what are you doing here? How’s it you haven’t turned in on the lower deck, in your proper billet?”
“The master-at-arms told me, sir, as how I wer fur to see as these novices wos slung their hammicks propingly,” replied Larrikins glibly. “An’ I wer jist a-seein’ to do it, sir.”