f boat service, and I thought--well,
well! never mind. It is a pity he gave the alarm to those feluccas so
prematurely, though. I am very pleased with you, young gentleman, and
with your shipmate too--very pleased indeed. You got out of two bad
scrapes very cleverly, to say nothing of the way in which you afterwards
weathered upon the arch-pirate himself. Ha! ha! that was neatly done,
upon my word. You did quite right, my boy, not to turn your stern to
him. Never turn tail to an enemy, even though he be big enough to eat
you, until the very last moment, nor then, if you think you have the
ghost of a chance of thrashing him. Which does not mean, however, that,
when retreat is necessary, you are to stay until it is too late and be
eaten. I should have liked to see the fellow chuckling to himself as he
thought how cleverly he had hoodwinked you. Poor chap! he little
dreamed that you were walking off with all his hard-earned savings
snugly stowed away beneath your cabin-floor. And it shall not be so
very long, please God, before we will have him also and his crew safe in
irons. Well, well! Now, be off aboard your hooker again, and see all
ready for turning over the prisoners and the plunder; and, harkye,
youngster, come and dine with me at the Penn to-night. Seven, sharp!
and give my compliments to your shipmate, and say I shall be glad to see
him too."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A DINNER PARTY AT THE ADMIRAL'S PENN.

The dinner that evening at the Penn was a very pleasant affair indeed,
at all events for Courtenay and myself; for on that occasion we reaped
the first-fruits of all the toil and peril which we had recently
encountered in the shape of that ungrudging and unstinted praise and
commendation which is so welcome and so encouraging to the young
aspirant for fame. The party consisted of three post-captains, a
commander, four lieutenants, and half a dozen mids, ourselves included;
which, with the jolly old admiral our host, made up a nice compact
party. The guests, it appeared, had all been invited expressly to meet
us and do us honour; we consequently found ourselves to be the lions of
the evening. We were, of course, invited to tell our story all over
again from its commencement, which we did, beginning with the mutiny on
board the _Hermione_, the narrative being frequently broken in upon by
questions from one or another of the guests, all of whom, I am bound to
record, manifested the utmost interest