head, in a manner which said plainly enough how well he
understood this treacherous tranquillity, and continued his walk towards
the town, with the same deliberate step as before. He had whiled away many
minutes unconsciously, and would probably have lost the reckoning of as
many more, had not his attention been suddenly diverted by a slight touch
on the shoulder. Starting at this unexpected diversion, he turned, and
saw, that, in his dilatory progress, he had been overtaken by the seaman
whom he had last seen in that very society in which he would have given so
much to have been included himself.

"Your young limbs should carry you ahead, Master," said the latter, when
he had succeeded in attracting the attention of Wilder, "like a 'Mudian
going with a clean full, and yet I have fore-reached upon you with my old
legs, in such a manner as to bring us again within hail."

"Perhaps you enjoy the extraordinary advantage of 'cutting the waves with
your taffrail,'" returned Wilder, with a sneer. "There can be no
accounting for the head-way one makes, when sailing in that remarkable
manner."

"I see, brother, you are offended that I followed your motions, though, in
so doing, I did no more than obey a signal of your own setting. Did you
expect an old sea-dog like me, who has stood his watch so long in a
flag-ship, to confess ignorance in any matter that of right belongs to
blue water? How the devil was I to know that there is not some sort of
craft, among the thousands that are getting into fashion, which sails
best stern foremost? They say a ship is modelled from a fish; and, if such
be the case, it is only to make one after the fashion of a crab, or an
oyster, to have the very thing you named."

"It is well, old man. You have had your reward, I suppose, in a handsome
present from the Admiral's widow, and you may now lie-by for a season,
without caring much as to the manner in which they build their ships in
future. Pray, do you intend to shape your course much further down this
hill?"

"Until I get to the bottom."

"I am glad of it, friend, for it is my especial intention to go up it
again. As we say at sea, when our conversation is ended, 'A good time to
you!'"

The old seaman laughed, in his chuckling manner, when he saw the young man
turn abruptly on his heel, and begin to retrace the very ground along
which he had just before descended.

"Ah! you have never sailed with a Rear-Admiral," he said, as he continued