ght, for I've seen the time when ye ha' laughed at the
music in the report of a peestol and the ping of a bullet! But your
nervous seestem seems to be unstrung ever since the sma' French dancing
count untied the string o' your waistcoat with his rapeer."

"You don't think, Paddy, the commodore here is going to bang a forty-two
pound shot into our stomachs after all the good prog he's filled them
with?" added Stingo, _sotto voce_, while the rotund Milesian threw his
head back and twinkled careless defiance at them all.

Just then the orderly swung the port-cabin door open, and standing up as
rigid as a pump-bolt, with a finger to the visor of his stovepipe hat,
in cross-belts and bayonet, he announced "Lieutenant Hardy and
Midshipman Mouse!"

"Ah! Hardy, glad to see you!" rising as he spoke; "squeeze in there
between Stewart and Burns, or Darcantel! Here, gentlemen, let me exhibit
to you Mr. Tiny Mouse! Don't move, Piron; I'll make a place for him near
me."

Saying this, the commodore took the lad affectionately by the hand, and
as he sat him down on a chair at his elbow, and while the conversation
went on with his guests, he said, in a kindly tone,

"Tiny, my dear, the first lieutenant tells me you are a good boy and
attend to your duty. I hope you pay attention to your studies also, and
write often to your dear mother. Ah! you do? That is right; for you know
you are her only hope since your brave father was killed. There, sir,
you may swig a little claret, but don't touch those cigars."

"Come, Cleveland! Cleveland! you are forgetting your adventures, my
boy!"

"Well, my friends, you shall hear them."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE DEVIL TO PAY.

"And how then was the devil dressed?
Oh! he was dressed in his Sunday's best;
His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where the tail came through."

"Hairy-faced Dick understands his trade,
He stands by the breech of a short carronade,
The linstock glows in his bony hand,
Waiting that grim old skipper's command!"

"The last dinner I had in Jamaica, and a very jolly one it was, as you
all know, was out at Escondido, where we kept it up so late that I only
got on board the 'Scourge' at daylight, in time to get her under way
with the land wind. Well, we were bound to windward, and for a week
afterward we rolled about in a calm off Morant Bay, maybe twenty leagues
off the island, and one morning we discover