chest, in every movement
active and graceful, turned out to be our old homely friend the
flounder, whom we have all gobbled up out of his bath of water souchy at
Greenwich, without having the slightest idea that he was a beauty.

As is the race of man, so is the race of flounders. If you can but see
the latter in his right element, you may view him agile, healthy, and
comely: put him out of his place, and behold his beauty is gone, his
motions are disgraceful: he flaps the unfeeling ground ridiculously
with his tail, and will presently gasp his feeble life out. Take him
up tenderly, ere it be too late, and cast him into his native Thames
again----But stop: I believe there is a certain proverb about fish out
of water, and that other profound naturalists have remarked on them
before me. Now Harry Warrington had been floundering for ever so long
a time past, and out of his proper element. As soon as he found it,
health, strength, spirits, energy, returned to him, and with the tap of
the epaulet on his shoulder he sprang up an altered being. He delighted
in his new profession; he engaged in all its details, and mastered them
with eager quickness. Had I the skill of my friend Lorrequer, I would
follow the other Harry into camp, and see him on the march, at the
mess, on the parade-ground; I would have many a carouse with him and his
companions; I would cheerfully live with him under the tents; I would
knowingly explain all the manoeuvres of war, and all the details of the
life military. As it is, the reader must please, out of his experience
and imagination, to fill in the colours of the picture of which I can
give but meagre hints and outlines, and, above all, fancy Mr. Harry
Warrington in his new red coat and yellow facings, very happy to bear
the King's colours, and pleased to learn and perform all the duties of
his new profession.

As each young man delighted in the excellence of the other, and
cordially recognised his brother's superior qualities, George, we may be
sure, was proud of Harry's success, and rejoiced in his returning good
fortune. He wrote an affectionate letter to his mother in Virginia,
recounting all the praises which he had heard of Harry, and which his
brother's modesty, George knew, would never allow him to repeat. He
described how Harry had won his own first step in the army, and how
he, George, would ask his mother leave to share with her the expense of
purchasing a higher rank for him.

Nothing,