the eyes
of needles, I suppose. But do you mean to say you ever heard of a
more dirty, blackguard business than this?" said Hardy; "he ought
to be expelled the University."

"I admit that," said Tom; "but it was only one of them, you know.
I don't believe there's another man in the set who would have
done it."

"Well, I hope not," said Hardy; "I may be hard on them--as you
say, they can't help being rich. But, now, I don't want you to
think me a violent one-sided fanatic; shall I tell you some of my
experiences up here--some passages from the life of a servitor?"

"Do," said Tom, "I should like nothing so well."

CHAPTER VIII

HARDY'S HISTORY

"My father is an old commander in the Royal Navy. He was a second
cousin of Nelson's Hardy, and that, believe, was what led him
into the navy, for he had no interest whatever of his own. It was
a visit which Nelson's Hardy, then a young lieutenant, paid to
his relative, my grandfather, which decided my father, he has
told me: but he always had a strong bent to the sea, though he
was a boy of very studious habits.

"However, those were times when brave men who knew and loved
their profession couldn't be overlooked, and my dear old father
fought his way up step by step--not very fast certainly, but,
still fast enough to keep him in heart about his chances in life.
I can show you the accounts of some of the affairs he was in, in
James's History, which you see up on my shelf there, or I could
tell them you myself; but I hope some day, you will know him, and
then you will hear them in perfection.

"My father was made commander towards the end of the war, and got
a ship, which he sailed with a convoy of merchantmen from
Bristol. It was the last voyage he ever made in active service;
but the Admiralty was so well satisfied with his conduct in it
that they kept his ship in commission two years after peace was
declared. And well they might be; for in the Spanish main he
fought an action which lasted, on and off, for two days, with a
French sloop of war, and a privateer, which he always thought was
an American, either of which ought to have been a match for him.
But he had been with Vincent in the _Arrow_, and was not likely
to think much of such small odds as that. At any rate he beat
them off, and not a prize could either of them make out of his
convoy, though I believe his ship was never fit for anything
afterwards, and was broken up as soon as she was out of
commission