leigh, you should not use scented
snuff."

"Eh?--no? The fashion, my dear sir. Now I am all attention."

"Then why don't you sit down as a gentleman would?" said Captain Belton
to himself. Then aloud--"My business is very simple, sir. This is my
son, whom I wish to devote to the King's service, and my brother, Sir
Thomas Belton, asks, and I endorse his petition, that you will enter him
in your ship, and try to do by him as my brother did by you."

"My dear Captain Belton! Ah, this is sad! What could have been more
unfortunate! If you had only been a week sooner!"

"What's the matter, sir?" said the captain, sternly.

"Matter?--I am pained, my dear Captain Belton; absolutely pained. I
would have done anything to serve you both, my dear friends, but my
midshipmen's berth is crammed. I could not--dare not--take another. If
there was anything else I could do to serve Sir Thomas and you I should
be delighted."

"Thank you, Captain Dashleigh," said Syd's father, rising; "there is
nothing else. I will not detain you longer."

"I would say lunch with me, my dear sir, but really--as you see--my
secretary--the demands upon my time--you thoroughly understand?"

"Yes, sir, I understand. Good morning."

"Good morning, my dear Captain Belton; _good_ morning, my young friend.
I will speak to any of the commanding officers I know on your behalf.
Good day."

The captain stalked silently down-stairs, closely followed by Syd, and
then led the way round and round the market, taking snuff savagely
without a word.

But all at once he stopped and drew himself up, and gave his cane a
thump on the pavement, while his son thought what a fine-looking, manly
fellow he was, and what a pleasure it was to gaze upon such a specimen
of humanity after the interview with the dandy they had left.

"Syd," said the captain, fiercely, "if I thought you would grow up into
such an imitation man as that, confound you, sir, I'd take and pitch you
over one of the bridges."

"Thank you, father. Then you don't like Captain Dashleigh?"

"Like him, sir? A confounded ungrateful dandy Jackanapes captain of a
seventy-four-gun ship! Great heavens! the Government must be mad. But
that's it--interest at court! Such a fellow has been promoted over the
heads of hundreds of better men. All your uncle's services to him
forgotten, and mine too."

"But if there wasn't room in his ship, father?"

"Room in his ship sir?" cried the captain, wra