younger brother when they sent _me_ to sea, but I became
a baronet, and a pretty warm one too, while yet a reefer. Poor Josselin
died when I was only sixteen, and at seventeen they made me an officer."

"Ay, and we like you all the better, Sir Gervaise, for not giving us up
when the money came. Now Lord Morganic was a captain when _he_
succeeded, and we think much less of that."

"Morganic remains in service, to teach us how to stay top-masts and
paint figure-heads;" observed Sir Gervaise, a little drily. "And yet the
fellow handled his ship well to-day; making much better weather of it
than I feared he would be able to do."

"I hear we are likely to get another duke in the navy, sir; it's not
often we catch one of that high rank."

Sir Gervaise cared much less for things of this sort than Bluewater, but
he naturally cast a glance at the speaker, as this was said, as much as
to ask whom he meant.

"They tell me, sir, that Lord Montresor, the elder brother of the boy in
the Caesar, is in a bad way, and Lord Geoffrey stands next to the
succession. I think there is too much stuff in _him_ to quit us now he
is almost fit to get his commission."

"True, Bluewater has that boy of high hopes and promise with him, too;"
answered Sir Gervaise in a musing manner, unconscious of what he said.
"God send he may not forget _that_, among other things!"

"I don't think rank makes any difference with Admiral Bluewater, or
Captain Stowel. The nobles are worked up in their ship, as well as the
humblest reefer of them all. Here is Bunting, sir, to tell us
something."'

Sir Gervaise started from a fit of abstraction, and, turning, he saw his
signal-officer ready to report.

"The Druid has answered properly, Sir Gervaise, and has already hauled
up so close that I think she will luff through the line, though it may
be astern of the Carnatic."

"And the prize, Bunting? Have you signalled the prize, as I told you to
do?"

"Yes, sir; and she has answered so properly that I make no question the
prize-officer took a book with him. The telegraphic signal was answered
like the other."

"Well, what does he say? Have you found out the name of the Frenchman?"

"That's the difficulty, sir; _we_ are understood, but Mr. Daly has shown
something aboard the prize that the quarter-master swears is a paddy."

"A paddy!--What, he hasn't had himself run up at a yard-arm, or
stun'sail-boom end, has he--hey! Wychecombe? Daly's an Irishman, and ha