ggers and
Raoul Yvards! What will the admiral say when he comes to hear of
twenty-two men's being laid on the shelf, and a felucca to be paid for,
as a morning's amusement?"

"Really, Captain Cuffe, we did our best; but a man might as well have
attempted to put out Vesuvius with snowballs as to stand the canister of
that infernal lugger! I don't think there was a square yard in the
felucca that was not peppered. The men never behaved better; and down to
the moment when we last cheered I was as sure of le Feu-Follet as I ever
was of my own promotion."

"Aye, they needn't call her le Few-Folly any longer--the Great Folly
being a better name. What the devil did you cheer for at all, sir? did
you ever know a Frenchman cheer in your life? That very cheering was the
cause of your being found out before you had time to close. You should
have shouted _vive la republique,_ as all their craft do when we engage
them. A regular English hurrah would split a Frenchman's throat."

"I believe we did make a mistake there, sir; but I never was in an
action in which we did not cheer; and when it got to be warm--or to
_seem_ warm--I forgot myself a little. But we should have had her, sir,
for all that, had it not been for one thing."

"And what is that, pray? You know, Griffin, I must have something
plausible to tell the admiral; it will never do to have it published in
the gazette that we were thrashed by our own hallooing."

"I was about to say, Captain Cuffe, that had not the lugger fired her
first broadside just as she did, and had she given us time to get out of
the range of her shot, we should have come in upon her before she could
have loaded again, and carried her in spite of the breeze that so much
favored her. Our having three men hurt in the launch made some
difference, too, and set as many oars catching crabs at a most critical
instant. Everything depends on chance in these matters, you know, sir,
and that was our bad luck."

"Umph! It will never do to tell Nelson that. 'Everything was going well,
my lord, until three of the launch's people went to work catching crabs
with their oars, which threw the boat astern.' No, no, _that_ will
never do for a gazette. Let me see, Griffin; after all, the lugger made
off from you; you would have had her had she not made sail and stood to
the southward and westward on a bowline."

"Yes, sir, she certainly did _that_. Had she not made sail as you say,
nothing could have prevented our