s partly driven up the beach by the surf, and
partly dragged beyond the dash of the breakers by the crowd on shore,
this happiest of warrant-officers leaped out on the sand, and seeing
the Admiral above him, standing on the crest of the natural glacis
which lines the shore, he took off his hat, smoothed down the hair on
his forehead, sailor fashion, and stood uncovered, in spite of the
roasting sun flaming in the zenith.

The Admiral, of course, made a motion with his hand for the boatswain
to put his hat on; but the other, not perceiving the signal, stood
stock-still.

"I say, put on your hat!" called the commander-in-chief, in a tone
which made the newly-created warrant start. In his agitation he shook
a bunch of well-trimmed ringlets a little on one side, and betrayed to
the flashing eyes of the Admiral a pair of small round silver
ear-rings, the parting gift, doubtless, of some favoured and favouring
"Poll or Bess" of dear, old, blackguard Point Beach. Be this as it
may, the Admiral, first stepping on one side, and then holding his
head forward, as if to re-establish the doubting evidence of his
horrified senses, and forcibly keeping down the astonished seaman's
hat with his hand, roared out,--

"Who the devil are you?"

"John Marline, sir!" replied the bewildered boatswain, beginning to
suspect the scrape he had got himself into.

"Oh!" cried the flag-officer, with a scornful laugh. "Oh! I beg your
pardon; I took you for a Portuguese."

"No, sir!" instinctively faltered out the other, seeing the Admiral
expected some reply.

"No! Then, if you are not a foreigner, why do you hoist false colours?
What business has an English sailor with these d----d machines in his
ears?"

"I don't know, sir," said poor Marline. "I put them in only this
morning, when I rigged myself in my new togs to answer the signal on
shore."

"Then," said Sir Samuel, softened by the contrite look of his old
shipmate, and having got rid of the greater portion of his bile by the
first explosion, "you will now proceed to unrig yourself of this top
hamper as fast as you can; pitch them into the surf if you like; but
never, as you respect the warrant in your pocket, let me see you in
that disguise again."

When the drum beats the well-known "_Generale_," the ship's company
range themselves in a single line along both sides of the
quarter-deck, the gangways, and all round the forecastle. In a
frigate, the whole crew may be thus spread ou