ships. They are machines, Greenly, and have their
laws, just the same as the planets in the heavens. The idea comes from a
fish,--head, run, and helm; and all we have to do is to study the fishes
in order to get the sort of craft we want. If there is occasion for
bulk, take the whale, and you get a round bottom, full fore-body, and a
clean run. When you want speed, models are plenty--take the dolphin, for
instance,--and there you find an entrance like a wedge, a lean
fore-body, and a run as clean as this ship's decks. But some of our
young captains would spoil a dolphin's sailing, if they could breathe
under water, so as to get at the poor devils. Look at their fancies! The
First Lord shall give one of his cousins a frigate, now, that is moulded
after nature itself, as one might say; with a bottom that would put a
trout to shame. Well, one of the first things the lad does, when he gets
on board her, is to lengthen his gaff, perhaps, put a cloth or two in
his mizzen, and call it a spanker, settle away the peak till it sticks
out over his taffrail like a sign-post, and then away he goes upon a
wind, with his helm hard-up, bragging what a weatherly craft he has, and
how hard it is to make her even _look_ to leeward."

"I have known such sailors, I must confess, Sir Gervaise; but time cures
them of that folly."

"That is to be hoped; for what would a man think of a fish to which
nature had fitted a tail athwart-ships, and which was obliged to carry a
fin, like a lee-board, under its lee-jaw, to prevent falling off dead
before the wind!"

Here Sir Gervaise laughed heartily at the picture of the awkward
creature to which his own imagination had given birth; Greenly joining
in the merriment, partly from the oddity of the conceit, and partly from
the docility with which commander-in-chief's jokes are usually received.
The feeling of momentary indignation which had aroused Sir Gervaise to
such an expression of his disgust at modern inventions, was appeased by
this little success; and, inviting his captain to sup with him,--a
substitute for a dinner,--he led the way below in high good-humour,
Galleygo having just announced that the table was ready.

The _convives_ on this occasion were merely the admiral himself,
Greenly, and Atwood. The fare was substantial, rather than scientific;
but the service was rich; Sir Gervaise uniformly eating off of plate. In
addition to Galleygo, no less than five domestics attended to the wants