, however, by
an Irish midshipman, an old shipmate of mine, who, when undergoing his
examination for navigation, being asked, whether the sun went round the
earth, or the earth round the sun, looked up with perfect confidence,
and unhesitatingly replied--

"Faith, gentlemen, it's sometimes one and sometimes the other."

He was very much surprised at being turned back. He, however,
afterwards managed to pass, but whether it was because the examining
officers were not quite confident as to the exact state of the case
themselves, and therefore did not push the question, or that he had in
the meantime gained the required information, I do not now remember.

Captain Collyer was accustomed to Billy's eccentricities. They were
sometimes inconvenient. One day, we fell in with a line-of-battle ship,
and our captain had to go on board to pay his respects to his superior
officer.

As he was hurriedly leaving his cabin he called for his cocked hat.

"Your hat. Captain Collyer--your hat, sir," ejaculated Billy Wise, in a
state of great trepidation,--"it's all safe, sir. It druve ashore at
Hurst, as we was coming through the Needles Passage, and some of the
sodgers at the castle picked it up."

Poor Billy had been brushing the hat at a port with too great vehemence,
and sent it flying overboard. He might possibly have seen something
dark floating towards Hurst, and his shipmates, who were always
practising on his credulity, probably persuaded him that it was the
captain's hat. Many captains, in those days, would have given him a
couple of dozen, or put him on nine-water grog for a month. Captain
Collyer very soon forgot all about the matter, except when he told the
story as a good joke. On the present occasion he had to borrow a cocked
hat; and it was not till we had been in action, and one of the officers
was killed, that he could get fitted with one of his own.

The captain had a goat, which was a source of much amusement to us
youngsters, and of annoyance to Mr Lukyn, the first-lieutenant; for, as
if aware that she did belong to the captain, she made no scruple of
invading the quarter-deck, and soiling its purity. One day, my first
acquaintance on board--the tall, gaunt midshipman with red hair, who, by
the bye, went by the name of Miss Susan--with two or three other
youngsters and me, was standing on our side of the deck, when Nancy, the
goat, released from her pen, came prancing up to us. We, as usual, made
gr