d-humoured smile and a ferocious snapping and
gnashing of his yellow teeth. It was all very funny, but so many
innocent persons were wrought almost to the verge of nervous
prostration by Algernon's ideas of sport, that at last the fiat went
forth that he must die. He was shot at dawn, and, less lucky than
Denis, reached England in a stuffed and rather moth-eaten condition.

Goats are comparatively common as pets in the Navy, but the goat of all
the goats was a white creature rejoicing in the unromantic name of
William who lived on board a cruiser. His staple articles of food
seemed to consist of tobacco, cigarettes, stray rope-yarns, bristles of
brooms, and odds and ends of old canvas, while he was not averse to
licking the galvanised compound off the newly painted quarter-deck
stanchions whenever an opportunity of doing so presented itself. He
was a healthy goat of voracious appetite. His gastric juices would
have dissolved a marline-spike, and he even made short work of the
greater portion of a pair of ammunition boots belonging to the
Sergeant-Major of Royal Marines, and devoured with every symptom of
relish a sheaf of official and highly important documents lying on the
writing-table in the navigator's cabin.

William, in spite of his varied diet, always looked well-nourished and
in the rudest of health, and on Sundays was wont to appear at divisions
with his hair and beard parted in the middle, wearing an elaborate
brass collar, and with gilded horns and hooves. He had charming
manners, and even condescended to drink an occasional glass of sherry
in the wardroom on guest nights. Of his ultimate fate I have no
knowledge, but, with the very miscellaneous contents of his interior,
he would have provided a most interesting subject for a _post-mortem_
examination.

Several ships have had bears as pets, but one in particular, which was
the mascot of a cruiser on the Mediterranean station, was a bear with a
pronounced sense of humour. On one occasion it so happened that the
vessel to which he belonged was lying alongside the mole at Gibraltar,
while another cruiser, fresh from England, was made fast just astern of
her. It was Sunday afternoon, and all hands and the cook, except those
on duty, followed the usual custom of the Service by selecting sunny
spots on deck and then composing themselves to peaceful slumber. At
about 2.30 p.m. Master Bruin, freeing himself from his chain, landed,
ambled along the jetty