. "They have a brown sherry at Christ Church which may
challenge it, perhaps . . . The steward remembers my weakness when I go up
to preach my afternoon sermon at St. Mary's. There was talk in
Congregation, the other day, of abolishing afternoon sermons, on the
ground that nobody attended them; but this, as one speaker feelingly
observed, would deprive the country clergy of a dear privilege. . . ."
The Rector took another sip. "An heroic contest, between two such wines!"

"Talking of heroic contests, mine came to me by means of a prize-fight,"
said my grand-uncle, with a glance down the table at us two youngsters who
were sipping and looking wise, as became connoisseurs fresh from the small
beer of a public school. At the word 'prize-fight,' Dick and I pricked up
our ears. To us the Admiral was at once a prodigiously fine fellow and a
prodigiously old one--though he dated after Nelson's day, to us he reached
well back to it, and in fact he had been a midshipman in the last two
years of the Great War. Certainly he belonged to the old school rather
than to the new. He had fought under Codrington at Navarino. He had
talked with mighty men of the ring--Tom Cribb, Jem Mace, Belcher, Sayers.

"What is more," said he, "though paid late, the wine you're drinking is
the first prize-money I ever took; in my first ship, lads, and within
forty-eight hours of joining her. . . . Youth, youth!"--as the decanter
came around to him he refilled his glass.--"And to think that I was a good
two years younger than either of you!"

"A prize-fight? You'll tell us about it, sir?" ventured Dick eagerly.

"The Rector has heard the yarn before, I doubt?" said the old man, with a
glance which told that he only needed pressing.

"That objection," the Rector answered tactfully, "has been lodged against
certain of my sermons. I never let it deter me."

"There's a moral in it, too," said my grand-uncle, visibly reassured.

Well, as for the moral, I cannot say that I have ever found it, to swear
by. But here is my grand-uncle's story.

If you want a seaman, they say, you must catch him young, and I will add
that the first hour for him is the best. Eh? Young men have talked to me
of the day when they first entered Oxford or Cambridge--of the moment,
we'll say, when the London coach topped the Shotover rise in the early
morning, and they saw all the towers and spires at their feet.
I am willing to believe it good. And the first ki