"'Ring out the old, ring in the new,'"
grimly mutters Ned between his chattering teeth, as he strikes the knell of the old year on the big bell for'ard.
"Hillo-o-o in there! Eight bells, you sleepers! D'ye hear the news?"
As the sleepy, grumbling watch come on deck, the wheel and look-out are relieved.
"Go below, the port watch, but stand ready for a call," says Mr. Marline, the chief mate.
Ned is crawling stiffly down from the look-out, when very unexpectedly the long-legged overgrown boy who, without speaking, had relieved him, bawls in his ear, "Wish you a happy new year, Ned!"
Unexpectedly, I say, for the reason that the two boys, who were room-mates, have not spoken together before for a whole week. Ned hesitates a moment. Suddenly to mind come the familiar lines,
"The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false—ring in the true."
"Same to you, old fellow," he exclaims, as well as his chattering jaws will let him, and then creeping cautiously along the slippery, heaving deck, Ned enters the "boys' room" in the after-end of the house. Throwing off his oil-skins and drenched pea-jacket with a shiver, he is about to turn into his bunk, when he sees lying on his gray berth blanket a pair of half-worn rubber boots. Scrawled on a bit of paper tied to one of the loops are these words:
"A new yeres Presunt to ned i was keeping Them for you All the time from your aff shipmate, E Jackson."