On the inner bulkhead near the door was a stove, and beyond this again a small piano. This instrument had been quite a good one once upon a time, but, owing to an accumulation of foreign matter in its interior, caused no doubt by a youthful officers' steward, who found it a convenient receptacle for dirty cotton-waste, polishing-paste, bathbrick, and emery-paper, was long past its palmy days. However, it still made a noise, and was useful for sing-songs.
On the foremost bulkhead was a small hatch with a sliding door communicating with the pantry, and underneath it a mahogany sideboard. The appointments were completed by three wicker arm-chairs, provided by the occupants themselves, a sofa, a rack for the midshipmen's dirks, a mahogany letter-rack and notice-board, and rows of small lockers, just under the ceiling, round two sides over the settees. In these the 'snotties' kept their small personal belongings, books, and pots of jam or potted meat. But we have forgotten the beer-barrel. It occupied a conspicuous position near the sideboard.
Pictures and prints hung on the white enamelled walls, rugs were scattered about the floor, and the two long tables were covered with crimson cloths of the usual Admiralty pattern, and were adorned with palms in pots and vases of flowers. So, taking it all round, 'the 'Orrible Den' was not quite so bad as it was painted. In fact, it was quite a cheerful apartment.
Sub-Lieutenant Archibald Bertrain Cook--commonly known as Alphabetical Cook--was the senior member of the mess and _ex officio_ president. He was a lusty, riotous, red-faced fellow of twenty-two, and ruled the midshipmen with a rod of iron. The other sub was Roger More, six months junior to him. Wilfrid Shilling, the A.P.,[15] was a tall, anæmic-looking officer, with an incipient beard and rather long hair. He wore glasses, and was deeply in love with a young lady at Weymouth. He went by the name of Blinkers.
Next came the senior midshipmen, Antony Charles Trevelyan, Roderick MacDonald, William Augustus Trevor, and Henry Taut. They varied in age between eighteen and a half and nineteen and a half; and the first, on account of his rather blue chin and heavy growth of hair, went by the elegant name of Whiskers. MacDonald, who was short and had rather a barrel-like appearance, was nicknamed Shorty or Tubby; while Trevor, a small youth, sometimes answered to Winkle. Taut, the midshipman of Martin's division, was the Long Slab. He was tall and very thin, rather like a lighthouse.