igging, and the
cheering which we heard faintly in the distance, left no doubt that
the expected guest was approaching. A general's guard of marines was
ordered aft on the quarter-deck, and the boatswain stood, whistle in
hand, ready to do the honours of the side. The lieutenants stood
grouped first on the quarter-deck, and we more humble middies behind
them, while the captain, evidently in much anxiety, kept trudging
backwards and forwards between the gangway and his own cabin,
sometimes peeping out at one of the quarter-deck ports, to see if the
barge was drawing near.

It is a sin to mix up any trifling story with so great an event; but a
circumstance occurred so laughable of itself, rendered more so from
the solemnity of the occasion, that I cannot resist mentioning it.
While in this state of eager expectation, a young midshipman, one of
the Bruces of Kennet, I think, walked very demurely up to Manning, the
boatswain, who was standing all importance at the gangway, and after
comically eyeing his squat figure and bronzed countenance, Bruce
gently laid hold of one of his whiskers, to which the boatswain
good-naturedly submitted, as the youngster was a great favourite with
him.

"Manning," says he, most sentimentally, "this is the proudest day of
your life; you are this day to do the honours of the side to the
greatest man the world ever produced or ever will produce."

Here the boatswain eyed him with proud delight.

"And along with the great Napoleon, the name of Manning, the
boatswain of the Bellerophon, will go down to the latest posterity;
and, as a relic of that great man, permit me, my dear Manning, to
preserve a lock of your hair."

Here he made an infernal tug at the boatswain's immense whisker, and
fairly carried away a part of it, making his way through the crowd,
and down below with the speed of an arrow. The infuriated boatswain,
finding he had passed so rapidly from the sublime to the ridiculous,
through the instrumentality of this imp of a youngster, could vent his
rage in no way but by making his glazed hat spin full force after his
tantalizer, with a "G--d d----n your young eyes and limbs." The hat,
however, fell far short of young Bruce, and the noise and half burst
of laughter the trick occasioned drew the attention of the Captain,
who, coming up, with a "What, what's all this?" the poor boatswain was
glad to draw to his hat and resume his position.

The barge approached, and ranged alongside