I never could quite understand it, nor could any officers ever tell me--the fo'castle for the men and the quarter-deck for the officers, and what's English to one is Greek to the other.

Well, this was all I could see in the game.

They sat about, sometimes talking, sometimes not.

All at once a chap would rise and say, 'Allow me to speak, me noble lord,' and follow this by hitting some one of the party wherever the blow got in easiest--on the head, anywhere! [Laughter.] Then he would sit down seriously, and someone else spoke to his noble lordship.

Nobody got angry at the knocks, and Heaven only knows what it was all about.