423 ) 



BETWEEN DECKS. 



" Now for a jolly evening ! our watch don't come yet these two 

 hours. Bill, nick off the cabbage end of your mutton, and hand us over 



sing us a song : criea one or the group 

 gathered closely around a mess table, on which were disposed no end 

 of conveniences for drinking ; pipes, tobacco- stoppers, and boxes, half- 

 burnt papers, &c. &c. 



" I'd sing a song," returned another, " only my woice is a little out of 

 border, and besides you've had all my stock of songs over and over. 

 But mine's the right sort of singing when I'm in the way of it an't it, 

 boys ? and I makes no bones over it, and that's better." 



" You never larnt ?" inquired a neighbour. 



" Larnt! larnt what ?" 



" How to sing." 



" How to sing ? devil a bit ! it all corned by natur ! My mother 

 was a precious good hand at a song, and some of her talent has 

 corned down to me. Like father, like son, you know, an old saying, 

 and I don't see why like mother like son should' nt be one, too. 

 Her father was an innkeeper ; a very 'spectable kind o' person, worth 

 plenty of blunt, had kept house for a matter o' twenty year and he 

 got lots of custom to his place, by squatting her in the tap-room, and 

 letting her sing of an evening to the visitors. She singed vhat they 

 call Bacchanally songs, and trolled 'em out so deuced well, that all 

 those what heard her, listened with such relish, that they drank like 

 fishes, and spent all their coppers like so many kings. Many and many's 

 the half-crown my mother's put into her father's pocket. He wouldn't 

 let her marry, though there was plenty of tugging at him for her, 

 because why ? because she kept the chink going at the bar, and drawed 

 more drinkers to the Adam and Eve, that was the sign of the house, 

 you know, than all the other public-houses in the street, could get 

 together. The woice had been in the family, on the mother's side, a 

 long time ; her mother's maiden name was Nightingale perhaps that 

 was one of the reasons for it." 



" It might have been," cried one of the speaker's neighbours, " for 

 sometimes people's names wonderfully agrees with their employments. 

 I knowed a lawyer's clerk once at Truro, and his name was Clutchem ; 

 the schoolmaster said he was born for the perfession ; and his parents 

 thought so, too, for they put him 'prentice to one in their town." 



" Well ! I says," cried another, " that some of you had better sing 

 us a song, or tell us a story. Bob Wilkins says he can't sing, and you 

 know, he's our Appolyou, and so" 



f ' Appolyou ! what's an Appolyou ?" 



