oy, Jack."

"Ha! humph! He's a smart-looking youngster, Vernon, and the very image
of what you were at his age! How old is he?"

"Nearly fourteen now, sir," answered my father. "I'm afraid, though,
Master Jack is rather a small boy for his years, being short and
thick-set."

"Not a serious fault that, Vernon. He'll, be able to go aloft more
nimbly than any of those lamp-post sort of chaps with long legs, who
always trip themselves up in the ratlines. Look at me, youngster, I'm
not a big man, and yet I've not been the worse sailor on that account, I
think!"

"True, Sir Charles," replied Dad with a sly twinkle in his eye, "but
we're not all of the same tough stock and `ready--ay, ready' on all
occasions when wanted, though we might be willing enough, to do our
duty."

"Gammon, Vernon, none of your blarney!" growled out the old sea-lion,
pretending to be angry, albeit he looked pleased at Dad's covert
allusion to the Napier motto, which he had always endeavoured to act up
to. "I'm sick of false compliments, old shipmate. I've had plenty of
them and to spare from those mealy-mouthed, false-hearted, longshore
lubbers in there!"

"What!" exclaimed my father, as the Admiral jerked his head with an
expression of contempt in the direction of the club-house he had just
left--"you don't mean to say, sir--"

"Ay! but I do mean to say they're a lot of confounded hypocrites, by
George!" roared out the old sailor, his face flushing to almost a purple
hue, while he snatched at another handful of snuff from his waistcoat
pocket, and sniffed and snorted like a grampus. "Why, you'll hardly
believe it, Vernon! But, only a couple of years ago, when I was
starting for the Baltic, and in high favour with the ministry, those
miserable time-servers in there gave a public dinner in my honour in
that very club; and now, by George! because things did not go all right,
and I wasn't able to smash-up the Russian fleet as everybody expected I
would do, and so I would have done, too, by George! if I'd been allowed
my own way, the mean-spirited parasites almost cut me to a man--to a
man, by George!"

"It's a rascally shame, sir," said my father, getting hot with righteous
indignation in sympathy at this scurvy treatment of one whom he had
served under, and looked upon as an honoured chief; while I felt so
angry myself, that I should have liked to have gone up the steps of the
club-house there and then, and dragged down from his proud