e in one of his old skylarking bouts
with the crew, and even made advances to Pompey in his caboose, which
that worthy, in spite of his indignation at the manner in which he had
been treated by Jocko when he assumed the dignity of the _toga virilis_,
was only too glad to welcome and reciprocate; but, after one of these
unusual unbendings, the monkey grew even more dignified and
inapproachable than before, except to Tom and myself, who could do
anything with him, and he then confined himself exclusively to the cabin
and quarter-deck.

At Valparaiso we got further despatches hurrying us up to the Peruvian
coast, where the admiral much wanted to use us as a despatch vessel; so,
taking in as much coal as our old tub, the _Porpoise_, could cram into
her, we started for Callao, steaming hard day and night all this time--
but it took us no less than ten days to reach our port at last.

The admiral's ship was in the offing as we entered the harbour; and,
without the slightest warning or time for preparation after we had made
our muster, the old gentleman signalled, much to Tom's discomposure,
that he was coming on board of us for inspection at once.

"A pretty kettle of fish!" exclaimed Tom; "just as if he couldn't give a
fellow time to paint up a bit and look tidy after sweltering all the
pitch off her for eighteen months on the coast, and scuttling across the
Atlantic as if the deuce were after us, and not a day allowed us to
overhaul and make the old ship look presentable--why, it's too bad!"

"You needn't grumble, sir," said I--we were both on the quarter-deck
now, and the _friend_ had, of course, to yield to the _office_--"I'm
sure the admiral won't be able to find much fault with the _Porpoise_,
even if he were predetermined to do so, as she's in apple-pie order!"

And so she was; while her crew, who almost worshipped Tom and would have
followed him to a man anywhere, were in the highest state of discipline
and health, the African fever having disappeared almost as soon as we
lost sight of the pestilential West Coast and got into blue water.

"Do you think so, Follett?" he said more calmly.

"Certainly," I answered, "I would back her against any other vessel on
the station for being in the highest state of efficiency."

"I'm glad you think so, Gerald," he said to me aside, so that the
middies who went to man the side ropes for the admiral at the gangway
could not hear him. "You know these big guns are always sharp