all you on the lower deck aboard the old _Blazer_--beg pardon for
taking the liberty, sir!"

"Yes, I'm that same, Bowling, only grown a bit since then in stature and
likewise in years; for none of us can manage to work a traverse on old
Father Time and grow younger," said the other, laughing lightheartedly
and showing his white teeth as he stretched out his hand to father in
the most cordial way, like a real gentleman, as if he were a friend and
fellow-sailor. "I'm very glad to see you again--aye, and looking so
hale and hearty, too, old shipmate!"

"So am I to see you, sir," rejoined father, resting on his oar, while
the two exchanged a good grip of their fists; I also stopping pulling,
of course, and grinning in sympathy. "Why, I were only talking about
you last pension day to Bill Murphy--You remembers Bill; don't you, sir?
He wer' cap'en of the foretop in the _Blazer_ with us, Mr Mordaunt--a
little chap with ginger hair."

"Oh yes, I recollect Murphy well enough. He was a mad Irishman, always
full of fun and mischief," rejoined the other, smiling at the
remembrance of some joke in which the chap of whom they spoke had part.
"But you must put a handle to my name, Bowling; I'm posted now."

"Beg pardon, cap'en, I didn't know it, in course, or wouldn't have
forgot my manners," said father, raising his hand in salute; and then,
gripping the loom of his oar, he started a long steady stroke towards
the pontoon at the foot of the railway jetty, on the Portsea shore,
abreast of the old _Victory_; I following suit, of course. "You won't
mind an old seaman, sir, 'gratulatin' you, sir, on getting your step so
young? Ship my rullocks, why, it do seem but t'other day when you were
a mite of a middy along o' me!"

"Time flies, my man; and if youth were the only bar to our promotion
we'd soon be all admirals of the fleet," said the other, laughing again.
"Why, it's more than twenty years ago, Bowling, since we were in the
old _Blazer_ together."

"Aye, I knows that, Cap'en Mordaunt," replied father, in his dry way;
"an' I knows, too, that there's many a youngster o' yer own standing as
ain't got further than liftenant yet, sir! It's only the smart officers
like yerself that gits promoted."

"Well, well, we won't argue about that, Bowling; `kissing,' you know,
sometimes `goes by favour,'" said father's old friend, smiling; and
then, to turn the current of conversation from this rather personal
theme, Captain Mordaunt,