"I think I write a pretty fair one, sir."

"That is good. I write a crabbed stick myself, and there's nothing I
hate more than writing; and as for these young gentlemen, I don't think
they will be of much use for that sort of thing. However, I shan't have
a great deal of it. But you shall act as my secretary when necessary."

The earl's orders to the tailors were peremptory to lose no time in
fitting Jack with an undress suit, and in twenty-four hours he was able
to join the mess of the young officers and volunteers who accompanied
the general. These were all young men of good family; and having heard
how Jack had saved the ship from mutiny, they received him among them
with great heartiness, which was increased when they found that he was
well educated and the son of a gentleman.

It was a great satisfaction to Jack, that owing to the kindness and
generosity of the earl, he was able to pay his expenses at mess and to
live on equal terms with them; for the general had dropped a purse with
a hundred guineas into his hand, saying:

"This will be useful to you, lad, for you must live like the other
officers. I owe it to you many times over for having saved me that
regiment, upon whose equipment and fitting out I had spent well nigh a
hundred times that sum."

Some of the officers were but little older than Jack, and by the time
the ship dropped anchor in the Tagus he was quite at home with them.

"What a lovely city!" he said as he leaned over the bulwark and looked
at the town standing on the steep hills sloping down to the river.

"Yes, indeed," Graham, one of the young officers, agreed. "But I fancy
the Portuguese are but poor creatures. The Earl of Galway writes in his
dispatches that they are great at promises, but he finds he can expect
little assistance from them."

"Have you any idea whether we are going to land here?"

"No; wherever we land, you may be sure it won't be here. The Earl of
Galway has been here two or three months, and he has some good regiments
with him. Our chief would be losing his position did we land here, as
he has a separate command, and would of course be under Galway if the
forces were joined. The Dutch fleet is to be here in a day or two, and
the Archduke Charles sailed a fortnight before we did; and as we have
made a very slow voyage of it, he ought to have been here long ago. What
a talk there will be! What with the archduke, and the Portuguese, and
the Dutch, and the Prince of