Reg'lar work, reg'lar ways, reg'lar rations and reg'lar lime-juice, as long as it lasted.

And not half a bad Christmas we didn't have neither, and poor Sal's Christmas-tree was the best part of it.

'What sort of a Christmas-tree, and why Sal's ?' Well, the carpenter put it up, and an uncommon neat thing he made too, of pinewood and birch-broom, and some of the men hung it over with paper chains.

And then the carpenter opened the bundle Sal made him take his oath he wouldn't open till Christmas, whatever came, and I'm blest if there wasn't a pair of brand-new socks for every soul of the ship's crew.

Not that we were so badly off for socks, but washing 'em reg'lar, and never being able to get 'em really dry, and putting 'em on again like stones, was a mighty different thing to getting all our feet into something dry and warm.