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I was deprived of my breakfast, and I raven: have they no sense of time, at all?'
       'There ain't no other gentlemen,' said Pullings. 'We only have a skeleton crew, and so,'—laughing heartily, since the conceit had only just come to him—'we have only a skeleton wardroom, ha, ha. Come, let me introduce the others right away: I have a surprise for you, and I long to show it. I fairly gripe to show you my surprise.' Mr Adams the purser had seen the Doctor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the Commissioner's ball, and was very happy to see him again; Mr Gill the master, a sad contrast to the purser's fat round-faced jollity, claimed an acquaintance from the days when he was a master's mate in the Hannibal , and Stephen had repaired him after the battle of Algeciras—'though there were too many of us for you to remember me,' he said. Captain Harris of the Marines was amazingly glad to be sailing with Dr Maturin: his cousin James Macdonald had often spoken of the Doctor's skill in taking off his forearm, and there was nothing so comfortable as the thought that if one were blasted to pieces there was a really eminent hand aboard to put one together again. His lieutenants, very young pink men, only bowed, somewhat awed, for Stephen had a great reputation as a raiser of the dead and as the invariable companion of one of the most successful frigate-captains in the service.
       Pullings hurried them away to table, took his place at the head, dashed through his soup—the usual wardroom soup, Stephen noticed, quite useful for poultices; though at the same time he did notice a familiar, exquisite, yet unnameable scent on the air—and then called out to the steward, 'Jakes, is it done?'
       'Done, sir, done to a turn,' came the distant answer, and a moment later the steward raced in from the galley with a golden pie.
       Pullings thrust in his knife, thrust in his spoon, and his anxiety gave way to triumph. 'There, Doctor,' he said, passing Stephen his plate. 'There's my surprise—there's your real welcome aboard!'
       'Bless me,' cried Stephen, staring at his goose and truffle pie—more truffle than goose—'Mr Pullings, joy, I am amazed, amazed and delighted.'
       'I hoped you might be,' said Pullings, and he explained to the others that long ago, when first made lieutenant, he had seen that the Doctor loved trubs, so he had gone out into the forest, the New Forest, where he lived by land, and had dug him a basket, by way of welcome aboard: and Mowett had composed a song.

'Welcome aboard, welcome aboard,' sang Mr Mowett
    'Sober as Adam or drunk as a lord
    Eat like Lucullus and drink like a king,
    Doze in your hammock while sirens do sing,
    Welcome, dear Doctor, oh welcome aboard,
    Welcome aboard,
    Welcome aboard.'

    The others ground their glasses on the table, chanting 'Welcome aboard, welcome aboard,' and then drank to him in the thin harsh purple liquid that passed for claret in the Worcester's wardroom.
       Thin though it was, the claret was nothing like so disagreeable as the substance called port that ended the meal. This probably had the same basis of vinegar and cochineal, but Ananias, the Gosport wine-merchant, had added molasses, raw spirit, and perhaps a little sugar of lead, a false date and a flaming lie by way of a label.
       Stephen and Puttings lingered over the decanter when the others had gone, and Stephen said, 'I do not like to sound discontented, Tom, but surely this ship is more than usually damp, confined, awkward, comfortless? The mould on the beam that traverses my cabin is two inches thick, and although I am no Goliath my head beats against it. Sure, I have known better accommodations in a frigate; whereas this, if I do not mistake, is a ship of the line, no less.'
       'I do not like to sound discontented neither,' said Pullings, 'nor to crab any ship I belong to; but between you and me, Doctor, between you and me, she is more what we call a floating coffin than a ship. And as for the damp,