in."

"Turned out," I muttered, as I left the room. From this brief incident,
young as I was, I augured badly of Captain Reud. I at once felt that I
had broken some rule of etiquette, but I knew that he had sinned against
the dictates of mere humanity. There was a littleness in his conduct,
and an indecision in his manner, quite at variance with my untutored
notions of the gallant bearing of a British sailor.

As I lay in bed at my inn, my mind re-enacted all the scenes of the
previous day. I was certainly dissatisfied with every occurrence. I
was dissatisfied with the security of my friend Josiah Cheeks, the
Major-General of the Horse-Marines, of his Majesty's ship the _Merry
Dun_ of Dover. I was dissatisfied with my reception by Captain Reud, of
his Majesty's ship _Eos_, notwithstanding his skill at spinning upon a
bottle; nor was I altogether satisfied with the blustering,
half-protecting, half-overbearing conduct towards me, of his
first-lieutenant, Mr Farmer. But all these dissatisfactions united
were as nothing to the disgust I felt at the broad innuendoes so
liberally flung out concerning the mystery of my birth.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

RALPH'S HEART STILL AT HOME--HIS COFFEE-ROOM FRIEND ALL ABROAD--GETS HIS
IOU CASHED, AND SEES THE GIVER EXALTED TO EVERYBODY'S SATISFACTION BUT
HIS OWN.

Before I plunge into all the strange adventures, and unlooked-for
vicissitudes, of my naval life, I must be indulged with a few prefatory
remarks. The royal navy, as a service, is not vilified, nor the gallant
members who compose it insulted, by pointing out the idiosyncrasies, the
absurdities, and even the vices and crimes of some of its members.
Human nature is human nature still, whether it fawn in the court or
philander in the grove. The man carries with him on the seas the same
predilections, the same passions, and the same dispositions, both for
good and for evil, as he possessed on shore. The ocean breeze does not
convert the coward into the hero, the passionate man into the
philosopher, or the mean one into a pattern of liberality. It is true,
that a coward in the service seldom dares show his cowardice; that in
the inferior grades passion is controlled by discipline, and in all,
meanness is shamed by intimate, and social communion, into the semblance
of much better feelings. Still, with all this, the blue coat, like
charity, covereth a multitude of sins, and the blue water is, as yet,
inefficacious