TRIALS OF A MESSMAN.
RISE and shine! Rise and shine! All hands lash up and stow hammocks! Show a leg there, you’re the man of the moment;” followed by a few remarks on my personal appearance and habits, as I try to lie and seem to be asleep, and I awake to the realisation that I am “Messman.”
Until a few weeks ago I didn’t even know what the name meant, except that he was not a man who was expected to make messes, and that unpleasant personal remarks were made to him if he did. Now, however, I have learnt by experience that he is expected to do everything and to do it all at the same time. Finding it impossible to impress on the night-watchman the fact that, having a delicate constitution, I ought not to be expected to turn out with the temperature at 20° Fahr., I gave him my candid opinion of his powers of stoking, and said I was pretty sure that in a future sphere, he was likely to give dissatisfaction.
