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He had not sat thus for more than a minute when his comrade in misfortune became violently sick, for the ship was just beginning to curtsy to the incoming sea over the bar as she was tossed seaward head to the wind, and even had the weather been as fine as could be wished, the many strange smells and the beastly appearance of the food were enough to turn any delicate boy’s stomach. It did for Frank at any rate, and almost immediately he too was vomiting in sympathy, utterly oblivious to the blows and abuse the two seniors showered upon them both with the utmost liberality.

With a last flicker of sense, but almost as much dead as alive, the two new-comers crawled into their bunks among their unpacked belongings there, and lay wallowing in unconscious misery, intensified, if possible, by the fumes of strong tobacco from the pipes of their hardened shipmates, who sententiously observed that there was nothing like bacca to kill stink.

Overdrawn, exaggerated, false, I hear people say. Well, all I reply is, ask those who know. If only boys going to sea like this could have a little training first, much of this suffering might be avoided, but for those who come to it fresh from a good home ashore, it is much worse than I can express in print. However, I am not to moralise, only to tell Frank Brown’s story.