or his appearance.

"Well, Cuffe," said this uninviting-looking personage, twitching the
stump of the maimed arm, "I see you are out of the flock; are you all
ready for sailing?"

"We have one boat ashore after letters, my lord; as soon as she comes
off we shall lift our anchor, which is only under-foot."

"Very well--I have sent the Ringdove to the southward on the same
errand, and I see she is half a league from the anchorage on her way
already. This Mr. Griffin appears to be a fine young man--I like his
account of the way he handled his fire-ship; though the French scoundrel
did contrive to escape! After all, this Rowl E--E--how do you pronounce
the fellow's name, Cuffe? I never can make anything out of their
gibberish--"

"Why, to own the truth, Sir Horatio--I beg pardon--my lord--there is
something in the English grain of my feelings that would prevent my ever
learning French, had I been born and brought up in Paris. There is too
much Saxon in me to swallow words that half the time have no meaning."

"I like you all the better for that, Cuffe," answered the admiral,
smiling, a change that converted a countenance that was almost ugly when
in a state of rest into one that was almost handsome--a peculiarity that
is by no means of rare occurrence, when a strong will gives expression
to the features, and the heart, at bottom, is really sound. "An
Englishman has no business with any Gallic tendencies. This young Mr.
Griffin seems to have spirit; and I look upon it always as a good sign
when a young man _volunteers_ for a desperate thing of this sort--but he
tells me he is only second; where was your first all the while?"

"Why, my lord, he got a little hurt in the brush of the morning; and I
would not let him go, as a matter of course. His name is Winchester; I
think you must remember him as junior of the Captain, at the affair off
St. Vincent. Miller[4] had a good opinion of him; and when I went from
the Arrow to the Proserpine he got him sent as my second. The death of
poor Drury made him first in the natural way."

[4] Ralph Willet Miller, the officer who commanded the ship to which
Nelson shifted his pennant, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. This
gentleman was an American, and a native Manhattanese; his near relatives
of the same name still residing in New York. It is believed that he got
the name of _Willet_ from the first English Mayor, a gentleman from whom
are descended many of the old families of the lo